by Noelle Adams
And it had been so, so good.
She would have assumed it was a daydream—an indulgent fantasy for the bedtime hour, just before sleeping—except she was sweating a little. And sore between her legs. And her muscles were starting to cramp up.
With a little moan, she straightened her legs and slid off the edge of the table.
When Patrick stepped back, she leaned against him, unable to keep her feelings from spilling over in a soft giggle.
It felt like he was withdrawing from her, and she didn’t want that to happen, so she clung to him, pressing a few kisses against his shoulder.
“Carol,” he said in a thick murmur.
She loved how it sounded—his saying her name like that. So husky. So intimate. “Patrick,” she mumbled against his shirt.
She was naked, but he had most of his clothes on, but she wasn’t as embarrassed as she would have expected.
He liked how she looked naked.
She’d seen it so clearly in his eyes, in his expression, in his eager touch.
He wanted her.
Patrick Stevenson wanted her.
As much as she wanted him.
“That was really good,” she said, her hands moving up to tangle in his messy hair.
He gave a grunt that sounded like affirmation. When it felt like he was withdrawing again—an unacceptable scenario—she tilted her head up toward him and pulled him down into a kiss.
He stood frozen in place for a moment as she kissed him. “Carol,” he mumbled against her lips.
“What?” She was smiling, even as she was kissing him. “Don’t you want to kiss me?”
“Fuck, yes.” All of a sudden, he came unfrozen. He wrapped an arm around her and backed her up against the table again. His tongue slid into her mouth and explored with urgent entitlement.
She moaned in pleasure, her body relaxing against his. After a delicious minute, she pulled her mouth away so she could say, “Let’s go to bed.”
Patrick’s brown eyes were languid and heavy-lidded. The sexiest thing she’d ever seen. “It’s just after noon.”
“Who cares about that? Can you think of any reason why we shouldn’t go to bed anyway and enjoy ourselves some more?”
“Not a single one,” he muttered. “Not a single one.”
***
Twenty minutes later, they were still kissing, tangled up in bed together.
She only knew how long it had been because she’d glanced at the clock. The minutes had passed in a hot, blurry haze, and her body was feeling so good she could barely recognize it.
She’d had decent sex before. Not a lot but certainly some. But so often she’d felt distracted in the process, hoping she was pleasing the man and coming across as attractive and sexy. Even when she’d lectured herself about not getting hung up on such insecurities, they’d always been in the back of her mind.
She’d always secretly worried that the man would be disappointed in her since she wasn’t gorgeous and didn’t have any particular skills.
It was different with Patrick. She knew he was into it. She knew it. And she was too overwhelmed to even think about possible sources of worry.
At the moment, he was on top of her, his mouth busy at her breast. After the great orgasm she’d had in the kitchen, she wouldn’t have expected to feel this aroused still.
But she did. She was flushed and pulsing with desire, and it hadn’t been urgent enough yet to get in the way of how good it was feeling. Not until just now. Now the pressure was starting to tighten, making her want to squirm.
Patrick obviously wasn’t a talker in bed. He was completely focused on his activity, and she found his single-minded commitment to pleasing her very endearing. Very Patrick-like.
She gasped as he twirled her nipple with his tongue and then gave a completely uninhibited moan as he took more of her breast in his mouth and sucked hard.
She usually had more restraint than this—worrying about sounding like an idiot—but there was no way to hold back the sound. Everything just felt so good.
Patrick trailed a line of kisses back upward, lingering on her throat for a moment and giving her a delicious nip, and then he moved his body up so he could kiss her mouth.
She wrapped one of her legs around his hips, thrilled when she felt his erection between their bodies. He was already hard again. It was thrilling, intoxicating. She rubbed herself against him as she hiked her leg up higher so her heel was pressing into his ass.
He groaned as she writhed beneath him, his tongue still busy in her mouth.
When he finally broke the kiss, he unwound her leg with one of his hands. “You’re killing me, Carol,” he murmured, his eyes raking over her naked body beneath him. “You’re gonna kill me before the end.”
She whimpered and arched up, wanting to feel his mouth on her breasts again. “Please, Patrick. I need you. I need you so much.”
“What do you need, baby?”
Shivers ran through her at the hoarse endearment, at the possessive look in his eyes. “I need you to make me come.”
“Is that what you need?”
“Yes.” She pushed her chest up, her breasts jiggling slightly from the motion. “I need to come again so bad. I want you so much.”
She normally would have been embarrassed by such an admission, but she wasn’t at all. She’d never felt so sexy in her life.
Patrick’s expression went hot just before he lowered his mouth to one of her nipples. He suckled vigorously, and one of his hands slid down her body until it was exploring between her legs.
She was wet. Very wet. Two of his fingers slid inside her and started to pump.
Her whole body arched up off the bed as tugs of pleasure from her breast and her groin combined and vied for control.
“How’s this?” he mumbled over her breast.
She cried out loudly, reaching above her head to cling to the headboard for support. She thought she might have said, “Yes! More!” but her mind was too clouded with sensation to know for sure if she formed any real words.
He was thrusting fast and hard with his fingers now, and he was still working skillfully on her breast.
She couldn’t hold still. She couldn’t keep quiet. She shamelessly tried to ride his hand as she banged the headboard against the wall. A climax was building inside her, and it was so intense, so powerful, that she wasn’t sure she knew how to handle it.
“Shit,” he murmured at her breast. “You’re going to come so hard. I’m going to make you come so hard. That’s so good. Just let go for me.”
“Yes! Oh God, Patrick. I’m… I’m… Oh God… I’m… gonna…” She was practically screaming as her body flew apart. Sobbing and thrashing and still clutching at the headboard.
He kept pumping his fingers as her cries turned into low moans and as her body gradually relaxed.
He was caressing her gently when she finally collapsed on the bed, letting her arms drop down so she was almost spread-eagle on the mattress, limp and panting and smiling like a fool.
He was smiling too as he finally slid his fingers out of her. She was so wet it was almost uncomfortable, but everything else felt incredibly good.
“How did you get so good at that?” she asked as he moved back up her body, holding himself above her on straightened arms.
“I don’t know.” He blinked. “I didn’t know I was good at that.”
“Oh God, you’re like a world expert at that.”
He chuckled and leaned down to kiss her softly on the mouth.
His body felt as tense as hers did relaxed, and she realized that he was more turned on than ever. She freed one of her arms so she could reach over to the nightstand to grab a condom, and then she pushed him slightly so he straightened up.
She rolled the condom on for him and then pulled him down into another kiss.
He lined himself up at her entrance and guided his erection into her body. She was tight and still fluttering a little from her orgasm, but the penetration felt incre
dibly good.
She bent up her knees and tightened around him, and he groaned and gave a few clumsy thrusts that felt out of his control.
“You like that?” she asked, running her fingertips down his back toward his ass.
“Oh God, Carol. You’re really gonna kill me. What are you doing to me?”
She squeezed around him again, and he made more of those helpless little thrusts. His response delighted her so much that she kept squeezing around him. He kept moaning shamelessly and rocking into her without any real rhythm or restraint.
Finally something snapped inside him, and he straightened his arms to get more leverage. He gazed down at her with a fierce kind of heat as he started to thrust fast and hard.
She whimpered in pleasure, digging her fingernails into his ass, loving how primitively it was moving.
“Yes, Patrick,” she whispered, her own hips moving of their own accord, trying to meet all his thrusts. “Take me hard. Take me just like that.”
He made a growling sound in his throat and accelerated his motion. She wasn’t going to come again, but she loved everything about it. She watched as he fell out of rhythm, as his face was washed with helpless pleasure, as he poured all of himself into this one moment of being with her.
He jerked and groaned against her clumsily until all the spasms of his climax had worked through him. Then he collapsed in a hot, heavy, panting weight on top of her.
She could hear herself still moaning softly. It was almost like a purr.
She couldn’t believe the sound had come out of her throat.
It was a while before Patrick could raise himself up and pull out of her to take care of the condom. “I can’t believe it was so good,” he murmured, more gravel than normal in his voice.
“I can,” she told him with a smile. “I knew we’d be good together.”
He dropped his legs over the side of the bed. He looked like he was about to say something, but a phone buzzed in the room. Frowning, he leaned over and pulled his phone out of his trouser pocket.
He stared down at the screen of his phone for a long time.
“What is it?” Carol asked. “Is something wrong?”
“No.”
“Who is it?”
“Just Emma. She’s wondering where I am.”
Carol felt a little clench in her throat. There was something off about Patrick’s expression. “Oh. What are you going to tell her?”
“I… I don’t know.” He was still staring down at his phone.
Carol sat up, pulling up the sheet to cover her bare breasts. “I think… I mean, everyone is going to be fine with… with us.”
Very slowly he turned his head to face her, although it didn’t look like his eyes were really seeing her.
“Patrick?” she prompted, more nervous than ever. She wasn’t sure what had happened. They’d had great sex. Incredible sex. The best sex ever. And he’d seemed to really… like her.
But now it felt like he was withdrawing.
For no good reason.
“I don’t know,” he said at last. “I just don’t know.”
“What don’t you know? Don’t you… don’t you want to do this again?”
“I… don’t know.”
Her nerves were transforming into an icy chill as she suddenly realized what was about to happen.
There was no reason for it to happen.
It made no good sense for it to happen.
But she knew without doubt that it was going to happen anyway.
“Why don’t you know?” she asked, trying to keep her voice natural. “We were… really good together. Weren’t we?”
“Yes. We were.” He’d turned his head and was now staring at the floor. His whole body was perfectly still.
“And… and you… like me, don’t you?”
“Of course I like you.”
“Then I don’t understand what the problem is.” She took a shaky breath and made herself say the next thing so there wouldn’t be any misunderstandings or wrong assumptions clouding the issue. “I’d… I’d really like this to continue.”
He didn’t say anything.
She pulled the sheet up even higher to the level of her shoulders. “If something is worrying you about it, then you need to tell me what it is. You can’t just… clam up on me like this. It’s not fair to me.”
He let out a breath that seemed to slump his shoulders. “I know it’s not fair. And I don’t know how I can… how I can even explain it. I am attracted to you. Obviously. I couldn’t keep my hands off you. But… but the rest of it… the rest of it doesn’t feel right to me.”
She didn’t move for a moment. Didn’t even breathe.
She understood what he was saying—despite the rather stumbled articulation.
He liked having sex with her, but he didn’t want a relationship.
He knew she did want a relationship, and he didn’t want to hurt her feelings.
What had happened between them was a result of sexual attraction.
Nothing deeper.
Not on his part anyway.
And he felt bad now because he thought he’d taken advantage of his best friend’s little sister.
That was what she still was to him.
Nothing else.
And she knew at that moment she never would be.
The realization crushed her.
Completely crushed her.
She could barely breathe around the pain in her throat, her chest.
But a small part of her—a part she’d rarely acknowledge and sometimes didn’t know even existed—reared up on the heels of the pain.
She wasn’t brave and bold like Ginny, and she wasn’t strong and practical like Emma.
But she wasn’t nothing. She wasn’t weak. And she wasn’t going to submit to a man—any man—stomping her heart into dust like this.
She was just as important as Patrick was.
She wasn’t going to let him see her defeated.
She wasn’t going to be defeated even if her heart felt like it was broken.
She swallowed hard and managed to give him a little smile. “All right.”
He blinked and turned his head back to look at her, obviously surprised by her response.
She gave him a little shrug, moving further into her guise of easy acceptance. “I won’t say I’m not disappointed—because that was really good sex—but if you don’t want anything more, then you don’t want it. You don’t need to feel bad about it.”
He did need to feel bad.
She wanted him to feel bad.
But she didn’t want him to think she was crushed.
He blinked again. “Okay. I’m… really sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. Good sex is good sex, right? I’m not going to be sorry about it.”
“So you’re… you’re okay with this? With us?”
“Like I said, I’m a little disappointed. But you didn’t think I was going to weep and wail at your feet, did you?”
“N-no.”
She heard the slight hesitation in his response, and it mortified her.
He had thought she would do that, humiliate herself because she wanted him so much.
Maybe he had reason to think that, given that she’d been trying for weeks to seduce him.
But she had a little pride, and eventually it would reassert itself.
Now was the time.
She just needed to get him out of her apartment as soon as possible so she wouldn’t break down in his presence.
She wasn’t used to not showing how she felt.
She didn’t have much practice.
She wasn’t sure how long she could keep this up.
She smiled at him again. “All right then. We’re fine. I won’t even tell the others what happened so it won’t get weird between us in any way.”
He just stared at her speechlessly.
She gave him an impatient frown. “Does that sound all right with you?”
“Y-yeah. Yeah, i
t does. Thanks.”
“Okay. We’re agreed then.” She paused, but when he just kept sitting there like a statue, she said, “You can leave then. No use to drag out a lot of awkward conversation. I’m fine.”
He continued gazing at her blankly.
“I’m fine, Patrick. And you’re starting to get on my nerves.”
That finally pushed him into action. He grabbed his clothes from the floor and took them into her master bathroom with the used condom. In a minute he came out, dressed and sober.
She was still sitting on the bed, the sheet pulled up over her naked body.
“You’re… sure?” he asked hoarsely.
“Yes, I’m sure.” She rolled her eyes, even though she was internally screaming at him not to leave her. “I’m not so idiotic that I’d expect an engagement ring after one round of good sex, you know.”
She would never have expected an engagement ring.
But she had expected something.
She’d been wrong. She’d been stupid. She’d been heartbreakingly naïve.
But she wasn’t going to be any more humiliated than she already was.
“Okay. I’m sorry.”
“I’ll see you later,” she said with a smile she hoped was convincing.
Patrick still looked blank, disoriented, slightly rattled, but he did walk out of her bedroom.
And then out of her apartment.
She heard the front door close.
She collapsed back into bed, finally allowed to stop hiding her feelings.
Finally allowed to cry.
***
She cried for about an hour, but then she got up, took a shower, and spent a long time blow-drying her hair.
She had a date tonight, and she was going to keep it.
She’d mostly agreed to the date in the first place as a gesture, but now it was more than that.
Patrick didn’t want her.
She could no longer hold out any hope for him.
It hurt—horribly—but she wasn’t going to put her life on hold to mourn the loss.
She was a decent person. And at least some people thought she was attractive and even sexy. Patrick had obviously thought so. Another man would too—and another man might want even more from her.
She wanted a relationship, and if it couldn’t be with Patrick, then it would have to be with someone else.
