Saved

by Hazel James

  “This,” I fist my length, “is because of you. This is the effect you have on me.”

  She draws a breath and nods.

  “Do you trust me?”

  She nods again.

  “Close your eyes.” As soon as she does, I grab a condom from the nightstand and toss it by my pillow. “Are you peeking?”

  “No.” She bites her bottom lip.

  “You’d better not.” I draw my curtains, quietly shut the door, and turn off the light, plunging my room into complete darkness.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Patience.” I retrace my steps and take her face in my hands. “What do you hear?” She angles her head toward the window, giving me the perfect chance to lay a row of kisses on her throat.

  “Rain and thunder.”

  “Mm hmm.” I step around her to continue my assault on the back of her neck. “What do you feel?”

  “You.”

  My fingers dig into her waist as I pull her against me. “More specific.”

  “Lips. Stubble. Muscle. Cock.”

  “Very good.” I grab her ass because I’d be stupid to pass up an opportunity to do that, then crawl onto my bed. “Last thing. Open your eyes and tell me what you see.”

  She gasps. “Nothing.”

  “Which means you have nothing to worry about. Now get up here. I have plans involving my tongue and your body.”

  Quiet giggles float through the air. “What if I had plans with my tongue and your body?”

  “I’m flexible.”

  “That’s supposed to be my line.”

  Christ Jesus. “You’re going to be the damn death of me, you know that? And why aren’t you up here yet?”

  “Patience,” she teases, parroting my earlier comment, and I can’t help but smile.

  “You know, this scenario isn’t too far off from what happened in my room last Saturday night.”

  “Which was…?”

  “Me lying here, picturing you naked.”

  Leilani trails her fingers from my ankle to my thigh as she comes around the side of the bed, then places one knee on the mattress and swings her other leg over me. “You mean like this?”

  I let out a hiss. She’s warm and wet and straddling me about four inches above where I need her most. Continuing her torture, she leans her body forward and rocks her hips back just enough to brush the top of my cock with her ass.

  “Holy fuck, woman. Keep that up and you’re going to pay.”

  “Kind of sounds like a win-win to me.” I hear the sultry smile in her voice before she does it again.

  “How did I know you’d see that as a contest?” I groan.

  “Me? Competitive?” She lowers her lips to my neck. “Never.” Alternating between kisses and gentle bites, she works her way down my chest to my abs, her hum of approval making me grateful for every hour I’ve ever spent in the gym. “Besides, you have the advantage, anyway.”

  “How so?”

  “You have two hands.”

  “I don’t need any hands to make you come.”

  She sits up. “I don’t believe you.”

  Whether it’s a true statement or a thinly-veiled challenge is irrelevant. All I see is an opportunity. “When are you going to learn not to underestimate me?” She yelps when I flip us over, caging her between my arms and legs and settling my dick at the top of her thighs. That spot feels like it was made for me and judging from the way her hips respond to mine, she agrees. It’s tempting, so fucking tempting, to slide into her wetness right now. God knows it’s better than anything I imagined while I rubbed one out last weekend. But I’m a man of my word, and like Leilani said, our little contest is win-win.

  As promised, I keep my hands on the bed. The darkness of my room was supposed to keep her from overthinking like she tends to do, but the unexpected benefit is my heightened awareness. I guess what they say about hearing things better when you lose your sight is true.

  Her breaths, slow and measured while we kissed, stutter the moment my mouth reaches the lower half of her body. The half I haven’t been able to explore because doing that at work or in restaurants would be awkward to say the least. I don’t need light to know I’ve reached the tan line she earned in Hawaii. It’s a line men would beg to cross and I’m the lucky bastard who gets to do it.

  When my lips graze the slope just inside her hip bone, she moans and parts her legs. I meant what I said about having no expectations when we came in my room but holy shit I’m glad she’s on board. I feel like a teenager trying not to blow his load thirty seconds in, so I do what I always do when I need to calm down.

  I take a deep breath.

  Wrong answer. Wrong fucking answer. The soft scent of her arousal amplifies my pubescent problems until I feel like a man who’s about to overdose on Viagra. The only thing worse than coming when you’re eating a woman out is coming before your mouth ever touches her.

  I issue myself a new, unspoken challenge of making Leilani come in less than three minutes because that’s about all the time I have before my dick will take over.

  I move my hands down the bed, propping myself on my elbows, and trail my lips along the inside of her thigh until I reach her folds. I don’t bother holding in my groan when I dip my tongue inside her and slide it up to her clit, trading long strokes and quick flicks.

  “Mmmm fuck.” She rakes her fingers through my hair and when I add light suction, her moans turn to vowels.

  Bingo.

  I quicken my pace as her pitch climbs higher, kicking myself for restricting the use of my hands. But do fingers really qualify as hands? Probably not, right? Otherwise, they’d have a different name, like “handers.”

  Though at this point, I doubt Leilani would begrudge me using my handers either.

  Feeling fully justified, I bury two fingers inside, and she bucks off the bed. In a matter of seconds, I feel her walls tighten and then she’s screaming.

  I’ve heard variations of my name all my life. First name for most people, first and middle when I got in trouble, and last name for anyone who served with me.

  But it’s never sounded better than it does right now, echoing in the darkness of my room. Thank God my parents wanted to give my grandpa some privacy when they built his cottage. Any closer than the back edge of the property would have alerted them and the rest of the neighborhood that I, Clay Prescott, just gave my girlfriend the best orgasm of her life.

  Her legs tremble as I slow my tongue, coaxing her down from her peak. I’m not sure if that was under three minutes. All I know is she came and I didn’t and that’s a miracle.

  “You… I… never… holy fuck.”

  With a low chuckle rumbling in my chest, I reach for the condom I tossed by my pillow. “Do you still want to—”

  “Yes. Now.”

  I laugh harder. “Well, when you ask nicely like that…”

  The Hero and the Bad Guy

  “IS IT SAFE?”

  I drag my eyes from my computer to Clay’s office door expecting to see him. Instead, all I see is a doughnut with something sticking out of the top. “Is that a…”

  He inches around the door, a mischievous grin on his face, and presents a Boston cream with a makeshift white flag on a toothpick. My stomach doesn’t know whether to growl in appreciation of the carbs or flip in response to the man who brought them. “How’d you get this? I thought you said your schedule was full today.”

  “I called DH and asked him to grab one on his way to the gym. Figured you could use it after the morning you had.”

  He’s right. Between spilling my last bowl of Fruity Pebbles before I could take a bite and almost getting rear ended on the way to work, my Monday was off to a fantastic start. That’s only part of it, though.

  Marshall was sitting in my chair when I got into the office. He must have broken something because I can’t fix it, which means my feet have been swinging like a kindergartener all morning. And let’s not forget the stench of his damn model car supplies. W
hat person in their right mind thinks it’s okay to use paint thinner in a room with no windows?

  But the final nail in my shitty Monday coffin came when I logged in. The simple task of reconciling purchase orders turned into a quest to unfuck everything Marshall touched in the past few weeks. It’s like he forgot to pull his head out of his ass before he turned on the computer.

  Clay came in mid-rant. When he asked what was wrong, I played up the idiot driver and my despair over having to eat Kix in lieu of my favorite cereal. I don’t want to cause any tension between him and Marshall. I fixed it on my own and planned to reward myself with one of Clay’s Boston cream pudding cups when I finished, but the real deal is infinitely better.

  I smile as I remove the white flag. “Nice touch.”

  “That was Rebecca’s idea. She used a blank mailing label and said if all else failed, to tell you I was coming in peace.”

  “She makes me sound like a lunatic.”

  “Well, you do take your Fruity Pebbles seriously. I don’t know anyone else who travels with them.” He sets the doughnut on my desk and checks the door before bending down and sealing his lips over mine. Not much has changed between us at work. Even though the staff know we’re dating, we keep physical affection to a minimum—at least until we’re alone.

  “Thanks for the special delivery.”

  “Just a random act of kindness for a beautiful lady. Speaking of…” The mischievous grin he wore moments ago has turned downright wicked. “Your challenge ends this Friday. Have you thought about what you want me to do when you finish?”

  “I feel like I should say something respectable like, ‘Help me bring donations to the animal shelter.’”

  His hazel eyes darken. “What do you want to say instead?”

  “How ‘bout a repeat of Saturday night?” It’s a bit forward, especially for ten thirty in the morning, but it’s better than, “Let me have your babies. Is this afternoon good for you?”

  He either likes my answer or doesn’t care about puppies today, because his mouth is on mine again. Our first kiss was quick and sweet. This one is full of need—specifically, the need to have him naked and on top of me… or behind me. “So that’s a yes?” I ask when we finally break apart.

  He chuckles and adjusts his shorts as best as he can before retreating to the door. “Enjoy your doughnut.”

  I do, partly because it’s fucking delicious but mostly because he’s fucking delicious. I need this week to be over now.

  Licking the last of the filling from my thumb, I turn my attention to the computer, ready to make these purchase orders my bitch. Halfway through the next document, my phone pings. It’s easy to ignore the first one, but the following two draw my attention. All three texts are from Kiki.

  I tagged you in something on Facebook.

  Are you watching it?

  LEI??

  I let her know I’m checking it now and launch my app, where the top notification is a link to an afternoon radio show.

  “This can’t be good.” I mutter, clicking the link. Ten seconds into the broadcast, I confirm my suspicion.

  The video, recorded from a camera mounted in the corner of a studio, shows two deejays. The one on the left is Bubba. I once joked that he should have chosen a nickname that wasn’t so cliché. When he showed me his driver’s license proving it was his real name, I felt like an ass. Turns out he was born in a rural town in southwest Kentucky and has a brother named Jimbo. Thankfully he’s a nice guy and didn’t hold it against me.

  But the guy on the right? That’s the other half of Bubba and Trav in the Afternoon. The position of his chair only gives me access to one side of his face, but I can tell he’s grown a beard, and he’s either wearing a shirt that shrunk or he’s been spending more time in the gym. Regardless, his physical appearance has zero effect on me now. I just wish I could say the same for his voice.

  That, unfortunately, is just as sexy as I remember.

  The clip starts with him on the mic. “If you’re just joining us, we’ve been talking about Russ Robinson’s new song, All Your Stupid Reasons, which a lot of people think is about his recent split from Celeste Martin. We asked listeners to share their break up stories, and first up is line three. Heather in Denver, you’re on Bubba and Trav in the Afternoon.”

  “First, I want to say I love you guys. I listen every day and you make my drive home so much better.”

  “Thank you, we appreciate that.”

  “To go back to your question, a guy I dated in college dumped me because I wouldn’t have sex with him in the library. He ended up getting caught with another girl the next semester, and both of them lost their scholarships.”

  “Gives a whole new meaning to ‘hitting the books,’ doesn’t it?” Travis chuckles at his own joke while I roll my eyes. “All right, let’s move to Pete in Boulder. It says here you gave your ex a dumb reason to cover up something else?”

  “Yeah. She was hot as fuck and we got along great, but the tip of her nose moved when she talked. I didn’t even notice it until a friend pointed it out and it was one of those things I couldn’t unsee. Every time she talked to me, I stared at her nose.”

  “So what did you tell her?” Travis asks.

  “I didn’t want to hurt her feelings because it’s not something she can help, so I told her I got a job in another city and didn’t want a long-distance relationship.”

  “I feel like that’s the male equivalent of a woman washing her hair,” Bubba says. “Did she take the bait?”

  “Yeah, thankfully. I’ve dated a few girls since then, and one of the first things I do is watch them talk.”

  Bubba thanks him for calling in and then puts Travis in the hot seat. “What about you, Trav? Do you have any stupid break up stories?”

  He scratches the back of his neck and shifts uncomfortably in his chair. I know that move well. It’s the one he makes when he’s about to say something like, I’m sorry, Leilani, but I can’t do this. “Yeah, my last relationship, actually.”

  Oh shit.

  “What happened?”

  “I kind of panicked when she had a health scare and broke up with her.” Bubba raises his eyebrows. I guess Travis never shared that tidbit at work. “I still feel bad about it. She’s an amazing girl.”

  “Sounds like you’re still hung up on her.”

  “Are you fucking serious?” I ask the screen.

  “About what?” I jump as Marshall strides into Clay’s office, folder in hand.

  “Umm, nothing.” Why can’t I silence this damn—I breathe a sigh of relief when my thumb finally finds the lock button.

  He quirks his head at me like I’m up to no good, which is ironic considering its his shit I’ve been fixing all morning. My lips flatten to a thin line, the last of my doughnut-and-Clay-induced high fading.

  Marshall steps around my broken chair and tucks the folder into a filing cabinet, giving me a perfect view of what looks like a new watch. It’s the kind that tells you the time, your heart rate, and whether you’re out of ketchup, and it’s around six hundred bucks. The only reason I know that is because Mom got Dad a similar style last Christmas. Too bad it doesn’t help with purchase orders, too.

  “So, you and Clay are still a thing, huh?” He nudges the drawer closed and returns to the front of the desk.

  I repeat his words in my head in case I heard them wrong. “Yeah, why wouldn’t we be?”

  “Look, I love the guy like a brother, but I wouldn’t expect it to last long if I were you.”

  The muscle beneath my right eye starts twitching. “Excuse me?”

  “It’s nothing personal.” He holds his hands up in surrender, like that dulls the sting of his words. “Clay’s just extremely dedicated to Battles. In the two years I’ve known him, he’s only had one semi-serious girlfriend. If Anna couldn’t keep him around, well…” He pops a shoulder.

  “What are you implying, Marshall?” Part of me wishes he’d say it. That if a woman with two arms, boobs,
and a head full of hair didn’t hold Clay’s interest, there’s zero hope for me. Then I’d have an excuse to high five his face with my keyboard.

  “I’m not implying anything. I just don’t want to see you get hurt.” With that, he spins on his heel and returns to the main gym while I take a series of deep breaths and concentrate on not getting fired for workplace violence.

  My phone chimes on the way to the checkout.

  Rebecca: Where are you?

  Me: In line at register 8

  She joins me moments later, along with Bristol and Blake, who are devouring their free chocolate chip cookie from the bakery. Clay got a call from a client while we were in the bread aisle shopping for our staff barbecue this afternoon. He left after confirming Rebecca could pick me up and said he’d meet us at the park instead. I’ve never swooned over a man while holding hot dog buns, but I guess there’s a first time for everything.

  “Who called him?”

  “I’m not sure. I think it was Stephen, though. I saw him Tuesday morning and he said the anniversary of the crash was a few days away.” We’ve gotten to know several of the regulars at the gym, including Stephen, a burly firefighter with a booming laugh. During his weekly visits, I’ve learned he’s a sucker for fried chicken and his miniature pinscher, Charlie, and that two summers ago he responded to a collision only to discover his wife and daughter were the victims. Healing from something like that seems impossible, but he said he’s come a long way, thanks to Battles.

  “Aw, Benjaley broke up.”

  “Who?”

  Rebecca gestures at the gossip magazine above the checkout counter while we unload the contents of the cart. “Benjamin Danner and Ashley Strumm? The couple who starred in One More Promise last summer?”

  I shrug. Movies aren’t my thing, so her sad news is lost on me. “Who comes up with those names, anyway? Benjaley?”

  “I think it’s cute. Oh! We should make one for you and Clay.”

  “That’s not necessary.”

  “What are we making, Mommy?” Bristol asks.