Sweet Imperfection

by Libby Waterford

  Now it all came painfully close the surface. They weren’t kids anymore, and he knew how to ask for what he wanted. Still, he felt like an inexperienced adolescent as they approached the dorm building where he was staying. Hers was the next one over, but he hoped he wouldn’t need to walk her home. They paused under the lamp in the small courtyard outside the double-door entrance. Now was the moment. Nate swallowed his sudden tide of nerves, excitement, and insecurity and put his hand on her arm, keeping her close.

  She’d been laughingly recounting her favorite part of the movie, but her laughter died away when he touched her.

  He took a deep breath. “I’m going to do something I’ve wanted to do for fourteen years.” He bent his head down and kissed her before he could lose his nerve, before the opportunity passed. As their lips met and he felt the warmth of her mouth under his, he wanted this moment to keep going forever. So he made the kiss last, slipping his arms around her waist, parting his mouth a little, increasing the pressure, lost in the scent of her hair, her minty breath, her bow mouth tender and sweet and, as she opened it to him, also incredibly sexy.

  He thought he’d be ready for the wave of lust that slammed into him like a late-braking taxi, but his knees literally went weak the longer he held the connection with Emma. He wasn’t prepared for the force of his need for her, and he wasn’t prepared for the feeling that this was all natural, all predestined in some way. He really wasn’t ready for her to pull back from him, to break the kiss before he’d had nearly enough of her. He might have stumbled a little to regain his footing after she stepped out of his embrace, but she was glassy-eyed and flushed and didn’t seem to notice.

  “So do you want to come test out the mattress pad?” he said, wincing a little at the lame invitation and how flip he sounded.

  She smiled and brushed her hair away from her face in a gesture he’d seen a thousand times and now found the most improbably sexy thing in the world. “You know, I think I’m going to have to take your word for it. But, thanks.” She closed her mouth and then opened it again as if she were going to say something else. Nate didn’t want to hear any more.

  “Of course,” he found himself saying. “Sure.” He was eighteen again, asking Elaine Kozlowski to prom and getting kindly rejected.

  “I’m sure I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Everything she said made it worse, so he leaned over and pressed a quick kiss to her cheek. “Goodnight, Emma.” The door to his building was blessedly held open with a cinderblock, so he didn’t have to mess with figuring out the keypad entry system. If he were more of a gentleman, he’d walk her the twenty yards to her building, but he was too busy berating himself. He obviously wasn’t a gentleman, or he wouldn’t have propositioned his friend after one kiss. Of course she didn’t want to go upstairs with him. Why should she? That kiss had meant more to him than the possibility of a quick lay. The way he responded to her, the way he’d thought she responded to him, made him want more than one night of sex. Maybe they had a future together, more than friends, more than a one-night stand. He should have thought of that instead of making a stupid joke. He’d likely blown it with Emma forever. Still, he couldn’t regret the kiss. If that was all there was, he could at least say he knew what it was like to kiss Emma Chen-Delvaux. Spectacular.

  Chapter Three

  Emma was half relieved, half chagrined when Nate abruptly ended their unexpected interlude. His departure saved her from more embarrassing rationalizations. She walked slowly next door to Ashworth 10.

  It had been ages since she’d had a proper first kiss. When Nate had taken her into his arms and kissed her, it had been more than a tentative kiss between longtime friends. It was the best first kiss in history: soft, sweet, subtle, leaving her wanting so much more.

  She’d said no, but not because she hadn’t wanted to take the kiss to the next level and see what happened. She had wanted that very much. She’d said no because she had a feeling that everything with Nate, from first kiss to last, would be the best, and that was so overwhelming to contemplate she hadn’t been able to go there.

  She couldn’t help it that her lips still tingled with the sensation of his mouth on hers or that her heartbeat felt fluttery and irregular.

  The kiss had been great, but it hadn’t meant anything. He was as lonely as she was, and back on campus, nostalgia would, of course, lead him to seek companionship with a friend. If they were going to stay friends or become lovers, they would have to take this slow.

  Slow. Yeah, right, that’s why her brain was sluggish and her sex heavy with an aching want as she climbed the two flights of stairs to her temporary dorm room. She hadn’t had a man in months, and Nate Hirsch was a most edible bite of male, not to mention a good guy. Having what was sure to be memorable, if not earth-shattering, sex should be her reward for putting herself through the hell of well-wishing as everyone else made progress in their lives. It was her consolation prize. She wasn’t married, but she could share a bed with whomever she wanted. Zero kids, multiple orgasms—if Nate was up to it.

  The rumble of a bass beat interrupted her rationalizations, and she heard an oddly familiar cacophony as she rounded the corner and stepped into the hallway. Jay-Z blared from a wireless speaker perched precariously on top of a keg of beer. What seemed like a hundred, but was probably only a couple dozen twenty-somethings in various stages of intoxication, wearing a variety of Weston University gear, were jammed into the hallway. Most were drinking from red plastic cups; some played beer pong on a table that seemed to have been swiped and hauled up from the common room downstairs.

  Either Emma was getting older or parties were getting louder. It would be impossible to sleep with the noise. Excellent. She battled her way to her room in the center of the hall, made a quick stop for a few essentials, then, making sure the door locked securely behind her, left Ashworth 10 for what she hoped would be a quieter, if more stimulating, Ashworth 9.

  She told herself a woman was entitled to change her mind and that going to Nate’s room close to midnight didn’t make her slutty. Some of the things she wanted to do to him once she got there might qualify her for the designation, but that would be between them. God, it had been so long since she’d had sex she was practically wet just thinking about making out with him.

  She barreled into the building since the door was conveniently propped open, but then stopped. She didn’t know which room he was assigned to. She’d meant to get his phone number, but had been so flustered by the kiss it had slipped her mind.

  Oh well, she’d have to do this the old-fashioned way.

  “Nate!” she called in a fairly loud voice as she trailed through the first-floor hallway. “Nate!”

  The hallway was dead quiet, so he was either ignoring her or the floor’s occupants were very sound sleepers. They were probably all at the party in Ashworth 10.

  She climbed to the second floor, calling his name, feeling slightly foolish, but also pretty horny, which was more important.

  “Nate!”

  A woman came out of the bathroom and looked startled when Emma rushed up to her.

  “Hey, do know what room Nate Hirsch is in, by any chance?”

  “Um, no, sorry,” she said, then scurried back to her room on the opposite side of the hall.

  Emma wasn’t giving up so easily and again called, “Nate!” She was about to climb the stairs to the top floor of the building when the door of the corner room opened and Nate stuck out his head.

  “Emma?”

  “Nate.” She rushed up to him, relishing the confused but cute smile on his face and the crinkles it formed around his eyes.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I’m an idiot. I thought it would be taking things too fast, but we’ve known each other forever. Plus, there’s a rager going on right outside my room, and I’d rather get no sleep this way.” She planted an open-mouthed kiss on him that had them both stumbling backward into his room. The door clanged shut behind them; Emma paid no attention t
o anything except the fierceness with which Nate’s arms clamped around her, holding her to him as if for dear life.

  Their entire relationship to this point had been based on conversation, but now there was no need to speak. Emma didn’t want to parse, analyze, and check that everyone was okay. She wanted to feel. She wanted to take. She wanted to be taken.

  So when Nate broke their fevered kisses to ask, “Are you sure?” she answered with a breathless, “Yes,” and a kiss composed of mostly tongue to assuage any concerns he might have that she didn’t want this as much as he did.

  She could tell he wanted her. His erection was a hot steel rod between them as they slowly shifted to the simple twin bed, locked at the mouth, the few clothes they wore coming off in fits and starts as they tried to get as much of their skin to touch as possible.

  Emma wriggled out of her black bikini panties, leaving her bare. She lay on the bed, drinking in the sight of Nate on top of her. He was beautiful naked, lean, and taut, his skin like hot silk under her hands. The stubble on his chin was rough on her belly as he leaned in to kiss a trail from navel to nipple. She arched into his mouth, offering her small, firm breasts up to him, whimpering when he teased the tips with his tongue and teeth, gasping when he took as much of her in his mouth as he could and sucked, sending electric waves of pleasure straight to her core. She wrapped her legs around him, forcing his rock-hard cock to rub up against her wet lips, over the top of her mound, massaging against her clit. This first time was going to be fast, but she didn’t care.

  “I have a condom”—she shivered as he blew cool air onto her tight, engorged nipples—“in my purse.”

  She stretched in the brief moment he left her to grab the condom, feeling how wet and hot she was between her legs, admiring the view of Nate’s naked backside as he bent over to retrieve her purse from the floor. He came back with a wicked smile on his face and protection in hand. She wanted him to go fast, to put it on and get inside her, but he slowed down. He rolled on the condom then gathered her back into his arms, kissing her mouth until she was breathless, forging a trail down the side of her neck until she was senseless. A hot pulse of need made everything he did that much more delicious, that much more frustrating, but she forced herself to savor the anticipation of finding her release rather than whimper and beg him to fuck her immediately.

  Her hands roaming down his back, her mouth found an ear, and she sucked the lobe lightly, encouraged when he pulled in a sharp breath. She did it again, and he groaned, “Emma.”

  She got a wicked thrill at hearing her name from his lips, and she moved her mouth back to his, kissing him with a kind of abandon foreign to her. She normally kept her sanity, her heart, intact when going to bed with a man for the first time. With Nate, though they should have been paying careful attention to the boundaries of their friendship, she felt herself letting all of that go, opening up and doing what felt good, what felt right. It seemed everything she did felt right to him, too, because at her last, desperate kiss, he wrapped an arm around her middle, dragging her up to meet his thrusting cock, burying himself in her in one fluid move. He filled her, grazing every sensitive spot along the way as he slid in and out. They found a rhythm as she held onto his shoulders, rolling her hips so she could wrench every ounce of pleasure out of this timeless dance. His face was serious, concentrating, his arms bands of steel that kept them both moving as one, and the pressure built until Emma cried out and crested. Nate’s orgasm followed so closely they seemed to be united until he collapsed on her, cradling her, kissing her, the waves of pleasure so intense they refused to recede.

  The minutes passed, and, as Nate held Emma in his arms, he continued to experience the afterglow of the orgasm flowing through him like a ball of hot red light. It was hard to move, but he was still inside her, and he didn’t want her to grow uncomfortable on this ridiculously narrow bed. They hadn’t even had time to put on the mattress pad. He shifted and took care of the condom then returned to her, wrapping her in the thin blanket that had come with the room.

  She was so wonderful, so beautiful. She made him feel whole. A sudden pang of sorrow broke through his elation. He was thirty-two years old, he’d known her for fourteen years, and they were only now discovering each other in this way.

  “Comfortable?” he asked as she snuggled against his chest, the feeling so natural and right it should have scared him. It didn’t.

  “Mmm. You don’t mind if I crash here?”

  “You’d better. Though I’m sorry the accommodations aren’t nicer.”

  “It’s fun. Reminds me of college.” She paused and giggled. “Obviously. But it kind of added to the experience.”

  “Yeah, dorm room sex does have its charms,” he said, pulling her ass closer and cupping it possessively.

  She laughed.

  “Why didn’t we do this before?” His tone turned serious.

  “I don’t know,” she said quietly. “Except we were both always dating other people.”

  “Yeah, I noticed that,” he said dryly. “The wrong people.” He wondered if she picked up on the implication that they were right for each other.

  “Yeah. At least I didn’t marry any of them.” Her voice was teasing, but he stiffened. “Sorry. I shouldn’t make fun.” She sat up to face him, regret in her pretty, lavender eyes.

  “It’s okay,” he said, but the punch of betrayal he felt every time he thought about his ex-wife must have shown on his face because Emma grabbed his hand.

  “No, really, I’m sorry. It’s none of my business. Do you want me to go? I can—”

  He held onto her to stop her from leaving. “No, it’s just…I keep thinking I’ve given myself enough time, enough space, that I’m getting better. I’m beginning to think I’m never going to get completely over it.”

  Emma’s face fell a little. “You loved her.”

  “I did, yeah. We met right after I figured out law school wasn’t for me. I really had no direction, and we hadn’t been dating long when she got a job in New York. When she asked me to come with her, I thought it was meant to be. We got married, moved to Brooklyn, and I began apprenticing with Charlie. And then….” He wanted to share the story with Emma, his old friend, his new lover, but he didn’t want to burden her.

  “What happened?” Her voice was soft, undemanding.

  “I wanted to get started on a family. Why put it off, you know?”

  Emma nodded, a bit jerkily.

  “Alison kept making excuses. Then, right before our first wedding anniversary, I was looking in her desk for stamps. I needed to mail a Mother’s Day card. It was a couple of days late, but, still, it’s the thought.” He smiled sadly at that detail. “There was a doctor’s bill hidden under some papers in her desk. I looked at it, wondering if it needed to be paid. She’d paid cash—for an abortion a month before.”

  Emma sucked in a breath, and he forced himself to continue. “She hadn’t told me she was pregnant. She just decided she didn’t want the baby and made it go away. I knew then that, no matter what excuses she gave me, we weren’t going to make it. Not because she’d had an abortion, but because she’d lied to me, hadn’t even had enough respect to tell me what was going on.”

  “Nate, I’m so sorry.” She was still holding his hand, and he didn’t want to let it go.

  “I confronted her. She told me she didn’t want kids right now, maybe not ever, and she hadn’t known how to explain it to me. She hadn’t wanted to disappoint me. She thought she’d been doing me a favor. All I could think about was that we’d had a child for a minute, and I hadn’t even known about it. Don’t you think I should have been able to tell there was a life out there starting to grow that I’d had a part in creating?”

  “I don’t know.” Emma sounded uncertain.

  “I don’t even miss Alison anymore. I can see now we probably wouldn’t have made it even if that hadn’t happened. Our priorities were too different. But I think about the baby a lot. The non-baby. Wishing I could have acknow
ledged it, wishing I could have known.” He glanced at Emma’s face. She looked as if she was trying not to cry. “Hey, sorry for being such a downer.”

  She shook her head and managed a small smile. “You’re grieving still. Maybe not for your marriage, but for what you thought your marriage was going to make possible. That’s okay. Grief doesn’t end, I think. It…changes.” She sounded as if she spoke from experience, and he squeezed her hand, wondering for a minute what hurts Emma had endured, wanting, irrationally, to have been able to help her through them.

  “I think you’re right. Not to make things awkward, but I haven’t been with anyone since Alison. Until you. And that was fantastic. So now that you’re completely scared off….”

  He was relieved when she laughed, and some of his anxiety melted away when, instead of leaping out of bed and away from him as fast as she could, she settled into the crook of his arm and ran her hands up and down his chest. Her fingers teased their way through his thatch of chest hair, flicked tantalizingly across his flat, brown nipples.

  “It was fantastic,” she said, her voice suddenly throaty, the sexy tone making the blood surge immediately to his groin. “But I think we can do better.”

  She kissed him, and Nate experienced a moment of crystal clarity—his life was complete. He was in bed with the one who got away. He’d shared his most tragic secret with her, and she’d said the right thing, done the right thing. He felt accepted, supported. He was overwhelmed with desire for this perfect woman. He couldn’t believe how close he felt to her, how much he needed to touch her. He probably would scare her off if she knew how deep his feelings ran, but he didn’t think he was imagining how good they were together.

  He intended to prove it her, and he started by flipping her over so she was on her back underneath him. The first time, she’d goaded him into taking her fast and hard, and his dry spell in bed had made that a true pleasure. This time, he’d learn more about what she liked, what turned her on, what made her scream out his name as she came.