“She did not cry rape.”
He barked a laugh. “No, thank god. But she told her sister she’d had sex with me, and her sister told her mom, and somehow it got twisted, and suddenly I was this evil seducer who defiled their precious daughter—they used the word ‘deflowered.’” He growled. “It had been her first time, and she’d been using me to, as you put it, get rid of her virginity. As a way of getting at her parents. She used me, the vagrant who didn’t belong, the rough kid from Kentucky who was on his own at eighteen when most of them barely knew how to even tie their own shoes much less survive on their own. I got run out of town that night—at gun point. They followed me to Smith’s house and made me pack up and leave.”
“Wow.”
“So, since then, I’ve just been wary, I guess. Her first time should have been a lot different. If she’d told me, if I’d known, I’d have been…I dunno. Different. It’s not like I was…I don’t know, railing her doggy style as hard as I could. But if she’d just told me I’d have made it different. But she didn’t seem to want to fool around. I kept trying to get her in the mood, and she was just like, no, let’s just do it. And then we did and she obviously wasn’t into it, if not actively hurt by it. I don’t know. Never got the chance to ask, obviously. But, I guess I’m not exactly a small guy, and I didn’t know she was a virgin, so the first time I…I went in, I wasn’t…I wasn’t as gentle as I would’ve been, had I known.” He looked at me, assessing my reaction.
I could see how me being a virgin would mess with him, considering that story. “Rhys, that was not your fault.”
He shook his head, shrugged. “No, I know. But I still feel bad. I just remember having the impression she was wincing the whole time, and I can’t help but wonder if she’d ever actually enjoy sex, if that was her first experience. I just feel bad.”
“You shouldn’t. She used you. Being a virgin is an important thing not to disclose.”
“Yeah, no kidding.”
Another silence.
I swallowed hard. “So, where does this leave us?”
“I…don’t know.” He scratched his jaw. “Maybe we should hit the road, and each of us can spend some time thinking.”
“Yeah,” I whispered. “Probably smart.”
He touched my thigh. “Torie, I’m not saying I don’t…that how I feel about you has changed. It hasn’t. But the reasons you didn’t want to start anything haven’t changed either.”
“But what you want and what I want might be different. Where I want us to go from here may not look the same as what you want it to look like.”
“Right.” His voice was quiet, perhaps a little distant.
I looked away, shifted away from him. “So, we’ll just get dressed and head out, maybe stop for breakfast somewhere along the way.”
I shifted off the bed, gathered my clothes from the floor. I contemplated taking my things into the bathroom to change but didn’t see a point. He’d seen all of me there was to see at this point, so why bother with modesty or privacy? I stepped into a clean thong, and then the same jeans I’d been wearing, tugged on a clean plain green V-neck T-shirt, and my sandals, shoving the boots into the bag along with the dirty underwear and T-shirt.
Rhys watched me dress with fascination.
I glanced at him, smirking a question. “What? Never watched a girl get dressed?”
“I mean, yeah, sure. But it never loses its sexiness. And watching you dress is almost as hot as seeing you naked.”
I bit my lip around a flattered grin. “You’re sweet. If I’d known you thought it was that hot, I may have made more of a show of it.”
His eyes flicked over my chest, my braless breasts poking against the thin T-shirt, as if he hadn’t just had his hands and mouth all over them. “Maybe good you didn’t. If you’d put on a show, we’d never leave.”
I slung my bag over one shoulder. “Don’t tempt me, Rhys. We’re supposed to be taking time to think about things.”
He sighed. “I know. But I can’t help wanting to get you naked and screaming every time I look at you.”
I had to get out of here before I tore off my clothes and threw caution and prudence to wind. “Dammit, Rhys. You and your dirty, sexy mouth.” I turned away, headed for the door. “Get dressed before anything else happens.”
He just let out a dry, amused chuckle as I made my escape outside.
Within a couple minutes, Rhys joined me outside and we jumped into the Jeep and headed out—it looked like he’d done the same thing as me: clean underwear and a T-shirt, but same jeans as yesterday.
Once we hit the highway, top back, wind blowing and sun shining, it was easier for me to sink into my complicated, twisted, chaotic thoughts and feelings regarding Rhys, my attraction to him, and my virginity.
I didn’t know what I wanted the future to look like. Time to think was definitely necessary. But he was…cooled off toward me. Maybe cooled off wasn’t the right phrase. I’d instigated things last night and this morning. And, honestly, if nothing else happened between us, I wouldn’t regret anything. If anything, I was glad I’d gone for it. He’d made me feel things I hadn’t known were possible. I hadn’t known I could come like that—once, hard, and all the way.
And god knows I’d learned a delightful lesson in making him feel good. In fact, I was fighting a seething desire to get my mouth on him again. I’d never imagined I’d want to do that. But I did. Badly. The short time I’d had my mouth on him, he’d gone wild, clearly enjoying it so much he couldn’t seem to cope with it. I’d had a momentary impulse to finish him that way, in my mouth, but I’d chickened out. I was scared of the cum in my mouth, afraid of swallowing it. Did I spit it out? Where would I spit it? I hadn’t known what it tasted like. He’d come, this morning, and then I’d wanted him in my mouth and had second-guessed not having him come in my mouth—he’d…I don’t think it was a real second orgasm, because nothing had come out except a few little drips, but the taste of that had been enough to make me want more.
What that said about me, I wasn’t sure. I wanted to talk to my girls about it, how they felt about blowjobs, and maybe get some tips. I knew Leighton was a bit of a dick aficionado, and talked about going down quite frequently, Jillie not so much.
Was it weird that I wanted to suck him off and swallow every drop of his cum?
I didn’t care.
I wanted to.
I wanted him to go absolutely crazy. Lose all control. Gasp and pant and cry out my name as I made him come so hard he saw heaven. Or, as he’d said, make him die and go to heaven.
He wanted sex. Actual, real sex. He wouldn’t be content with handjobs and blowjobs. I mean, sure, he’d take them and he’d give as good as he got, and then some. But he wanted to fuck me. He wanted things I knew for a fact I had no clue about. I was fairly confident in my handjob skills as I’d pretty much perfected them on Max, with the help of plenty of porn, because how else is a girl supposed to learn new techniques?
And I knew Rhys had appreciated the techniques I’d learned, because he’d made sounds that had told me so. I mean, at first, with Max, I’d just done plain old up and down jerking. Then I’d watched a video where the lady had done all sorts of things with her hands, twisting and using both hands and cupping and playing with his balls, and I’d realized there was a hell of a lot more to giving a guy a great handjob than just jerking up and down. If that was what he wanted, he could do that to himself. I wanted to do things he couldn’t and wouldn’t do to himself, which meant technique. I’d watched enough porn to know about blowjobs and figured I could do those pretty well, and definitely planned on trying it on Rhys at least once before whatever this was between us ended.
But did I want to have actual sex? Was I ready to give my virginity away? Did I want to give it to Rhys?
The complicating factor was that I was certain there were real feelings developing. For him as well as me. I liked him. And now that I’d gotten a little freaky with him, I liked him even more. Whereas wit
h Max things had been fun, and I’d enjoyed the things we did, but there was nothing more. I would never want or need Max. He was convenient, and he was safe—we’d both agreed on that. I had risked nothing with him. I could jerk him off as many times as either of us wanted, I could get fingered by him as many times as either of us wanted, and I’d never feel for him the way I already did for Rhys.
That was a problem.
Feelings were a big problem in this scenario; I knew enough about sex to know that if I slept with Rhys, things would change. Shit, we’d only messed around in familiar territory and things had already changed. If I gave him my virginity it would mega change. Whatever I felt for him would be intensified by an untold amount.
I’d fall in love with him.
Truthfully, I was already falling in love with him.
Dammit.
I choked, my eyes misting as the realization hit me. Thank god for the wind and the noise, because they covered for me.
I was falling for everything Rhys was. His thoughtfulness and kindness. His hint of roughness, the hard edges around his soft, giving center. The way he spoke, the twang that came and went. His humor. His love for cars, and the way he’d start rambling passionately about them.
I wanted to get into an engine with him. Hand him tools, wedge my little hand into places he couldn’t. Fix cars with him. Build things with him. Ride along on salvage runs. I wanted to be his partner.
I was falling for his body. His jawline and the stubble, his sharp cheekbones and puppy dog eyes that could shift from humor to intelligence to boiling with sexual heat. I was falling for his lean frame, his hard shoulders and shredded abs, his sharp hips and taut ass. His huge, long, fat cock with the round pink head and the tan wrinkled flesh of the shaft and the purple veins, and the bulging, heavy, swaying balls which he went crazy for when I played with them. I was falling for the way he kissed me, like I was the last woman on earth and he’d die if he didn’t kiss me.
I was falling for the way he seemed to literally and absolutely love my breasts—which I’d always been self-conscious about. They were small, sloped, with upturned tips, plumper at the base than the peaks. They weren’t anything like the tits on the girls in the locker room of high school gym class, much less those of the women on the porn I watched. Just more reasons to be insecure or, at the very least, self-conscious.
Jillie and Leighton thought it made no sense that I was self-conscious about what my boobs looked like.
But…Rhys seemed obsessed with my breasts, seemed to go bonkers to look at them, and even crazier to get his hands on them, and his mouth. He made me feel beautiful. Sexy. He made me feel confident in my body, like I was a curvy, desirable woman instead of the skinny, flat-chested, no ass, boyish girl I’d always felt like. He changed that, just by the way he looked at me, the way he touched me, the things he said.
And I was falling in love with that.
How could I not?
But…how could I let it happen? The farther from Connecticut I got, the more I knew I wasn’t going back.
But he had to return. He owned a business there. He had a life there. He’d fought like hell to build what he had, and there was no way I’d ever ask him to give that up for me, and nor did I expect him to, or think he would. And going back to my dead-end life in Connecticut was no longer an option for me. I needed a change, and a drastic one—spending time in Alaska with Mom and my sisters was just what I needed. Whether I moved there or not, I was sure the change would be good. I knew I was going to be there for a while, figuring out my next step in life.
Being in love with a man who lived in Connecticut was not a convenient or realistic part of that. It was impossible. Alaska and Connecticut were about as far apart as you could get, and starting a long-distance relationship with a man I’d known only a matter of days, with no end goal in sight in terms of ever being together was probably not the best idea I’d ever had.
It was stupid, that’s what it was.
So why the hell would I risk the integrity of my heart by sleeping with him? I’d just fall all the harder, and when he went back to Connecticut, I’d be devastated.
On the other hand…
If we did sleep together, there was no doubt whatsoever that it would be…beyond amazing. More than merely magical. It would be profound. Wild. Heart-altering, mind-bending, and body-shifting.
How could I pass that up?
Would it be worth the inevitable heartbreak?
That was what I had to decide, and I had less than zero clue how to make that decision.
Rhys
She was working through something in her mind, I could tell. We spent a very, very long time in silence, both of us thinking. We stopped for drive-through breakfast sandwiches and coffee and were back on the road in minutes.
I, meanwhile, was completely fucked up over Torie Goode.
Last night and this morning had easily been the hottest, most pleasurable, most intense sexual experiences of my life, and we hadn’t even had sex.
I was desperate for her. Even now, I was aching with suppressed sexual need. I needed her. I needed to kiss her. To have her naked body in my hands, her hot smooth flesh pressed up against me. I needed her on top of me, writhing as she came. I needed her under me, legs around my waist, crying into my shoulder as she came apart.
I needed to be inside her.
It was a biological, emotional, and mental imperative. If I didn’t get to sink inside Torie’s slick wet sex very soon, I might just explode, and not in a sexy way.
But I couldn’t. I couldn’t take that from her. I couldn’t demand it of her. I wasn’t even sure I was ready to be her—or anyone’s—first. I hadn’t wanted to be Emily’s first. I felt…violated, in a way, by what she’d done. She had taken advantage of me, certainly.
Torie had stopped us before we got there, and she had told me. She’d respected me by telling me and letting me decide what I wanted, what I was capable of.
I knew I was developing feelings for her—strong feelings—but I didn’t feel I could tell her. Not when she was planning on staying in Alaska, and not returning to Connecticut. And that was where my life was.
What a mess.
I was falling for a girl I couldn’t have. I finally find a girl who understands me, who shares my passion for cars, who gets it…and I can’t have her. I can’t be with her.
If she wasn’t a virgin, I’d be more likely to sleep with her and accept the consequential heartache when it was time to say goodbye. But not with Torie. I couldn’t do that to her.
I felt something powerful enough for her that I knew it was unique and special. And I also knew it wouldn’t be easy to get over her, even if I never got to sleep with her.
I didn’t want to think about how I’d feel when we parted ways.
Shit, just thinking about driving away from her made my heart squeeze.
But the fact was, it was getting close to the time for me to turn around. We were almost halfway between New Haven and Alaska by now, and the farther I got from my shop, the longer it’d take to get home. In the back of my mind I had figured that my little “vacation” would mean being away from the shop for less than a week. I could be gone that long without income. I had savings, but I categorically refused to touch that money under any circumstances except the most dire of emergencies. Getting that call from Dad reminded me that Mom and Dad depended on the money I was able to send them every month. I couldn’t afford not to be working much longer.
Shit.
But…where did I leave her? Chicago? Minneapolis? And how would I do that? Just take her to a bus station or airport and be like, bye? Drop her off and peace out like nothing had ever happened?
No fucking way.
It would be like leaving her on the side of the road.
But where did I stop? Where did I draw the line?
A bigger issue was our physical and emotional connection. The longer we were in this car, the deeper our connection would become. And the nights…would b
e impossible. How could I sleep in the same room, much less the same bed, as Torie and not end up having sex with her? And that would happen, I had no doubt. She wanted it as much as I did, I could tell. Maybe even more. Or…differently. I had a point of reference for what it would be, for how it would feel, for the connection, the deepened sense of intimacy. She didn’t. She couldn’t know how it would affect her, or me, let alone us together.
I wasn’t one of those guys who saw sex as just getting my rocks off, just a physical thing. I was fine with a temporary, one-time thing with a willing girl, but it was always a little more than just a purely physical thing. We’d lie there afterward and talk, and there would be a connection between us, a camaraderie of sharing the moment, the sex, the one-time rush of sleeping with a stranger.
I’d already felt that emotional component with Torie, intensely so…and we hadn’t really even had sex. We just fooled around in a way I hadn’t done since I was a kid. And damn, was it fun. The lack of expectations, the sense of not having a destination in mind, so to speak, just touching and giving and receiving pleasure for the sake of pleasure itself, for the sake of enjoying each other’s body…god, how addictive.
And dammitall, it wasn’t the sexuality itself that was addicting, it was her.
Torie.
All that she was. The mix of innocent and sultry, sweet and dirty, nervous and bold, confident yet insecure at times. Slender, yet curvy. Tight, but soft. Strong, but tender.
I glanced over at the girl in question—the woman, I mean. She was all woman. A virgin, perhaps, but not entirely innocent, and all woman.
A Real Goode Time Page 20
