by Grey, Blair
She thought about the question for a moment and then smiled. “Probably the best one was Geordie Christiansen,” she said. “He was in and out of the hospital for two years with cancer, and his wife just got more and more sad-looking. She had all these plans for what they’d do when he got better, but you could see that she didn’t really believe he was ever going to get better. And no one else really did, either. He had this really rare form of cancer, all experimental treatments. We were doing the best we could, but he was getting weaker and weaker.”
“Come on, woman, this is supposed to be an uplifting story, not a depressing one.”
Leila laughed. “It is!” she promised. “The day that his doctor told Geordie that his cancer was in remission, the doctor handed over two round-the-world flight tickets. He’d worked with a travel agent and booked the whole thing for them. Expenses paid for, all the activities that Geordie’s wife had added to the list. They went everywhere for the next two years, all the highlights and a bunch of off-the-beaten-path places, too. And he sent the hospital a postcard from every single place they went.”
She paused. “I wasn’t here for all of that, I’ve just heard the story so many times that I could practically recite it verbatim from the guys who were, but how amazing is the story?”
Watching her talk about it, seeing the way her face lit up, I could suddenly understand why she went into nursing. She really did like helping people. There was something of a romantic in her, I could tell.
I reached out and took her hand, where it rested on the table. She looked surprised for a moment, but she didn’t pull away.
“He didn’t die the next year or something, did he?” I joked.
Leila laughed. “No, he’s still happily cancer-free, five years later,” she said. “He volunteers at the hospital now, in the cancer ward. He’s one of my favorite people that I’ve ever met. And for a lot of people, it’s tough to go back there. Reminds them of a really dark time in their lives. But Geordie’s there a couple times a week, just lending an ear to people. Letting them know that someone else knows what they’re going through and that there’s hope. It’s really sweet.”
Our food arrived, and we both dug in. “You said something about a friend with a son,” I said, figuring that was more safe territory for talking.
Sure enough, Leila’s face lit up. “Yeah,” she said. She laughed and plucked at her dress. “This is actually Rachel’s dress. She helped me get ready. I wasn’t sure what to wear, and I don’t really have many nice clothes. It’s not like I have an opportunity to wear them much. But her husband is the owner of this start-up business that’s really taken off, and she goes to business functions with him sometimes while I babysit her son.”
She chatted about Gavin and her friend Rachel for a little bit, and I just watched her, listening to her words. She was really sweet. It was obvious that she cared a lot about her friend and the boy. It made me start to wonder about her. Would she want a family one day? What would she be like with children?
But it was too soon to start thinking things like that. Suddenly, she seemed to realize the same thing that I did: that this discussion was getting dangerously close to one on where we saw ourselves in ten years. An important relationship discussion, but this was only our first date. She trailed off.
We were both silent for a moment, and then she cleared her throat. “I feel like I’m talking too much,” she admitted. “It’s been a really long time since I was out on a date.”
“What made you agree?” I asked curiously.
“Maybe the fact that you wouldn’t get out of the hospital otherwise, and I didn’t need everyone thinking that I was causing drama?” she suggested, but I could tell that that wasn’t it. After a long moment, she sighed and looked away, taking a sip of her wine. We were through most of the bottle now, and I could tell from the flush in her cheeks that she didn’t drink very often. She seemed pretty lucid still, though.
“I just wanted to have a little fun,” she finally admitted. “Not that I don’t, with the things that I normally do, but I don’t know, I guess I’ve sort of been in a rut lately. It’s like I’m doing the same things over and over again. I go to work, I hang out with Rachel and Gavin, I relax around my apartment.”
“You wanted to have a little fun, did you?” I asked teasingly, even though I remembered what she had said at the hospital, about how we were just going to go to dinner together and then head straight home—to our separate homes—afterward. Was it taking advantage of her, asking if she wanted to go to bed with me now that I’d gotten some wine in her? Probably.
So instead, I said, “Why don’t you let me walk you home? We won’t do anything. If you invite me in, I’ll decline. But I just want to make sure that you get home safe.”
“I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself,” Leila said haughtily, but I could tell it was just an automatic reaction. She bit her lip; she was clearly considering it. “I want to go back to your place,” she said quietly.
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” I said slowly, even though I could already feel the blood rushing toward my lap at the thought of bringing her home and fucking her to within an inch of consciousness. “If I take you home, I’m not going to be able to keep my hands off you.”
“Who says I want you to keep your hands off me?” Leila practically purred.
I laughed. “You did, at the hospital,” I reminded her. “Before you started drinking wine.”
“Before I had a real conversation with you,” Leila said, her eyes turning suddenly serious. “Marcus, please. I’m an adult. And I want this. I want you. I have ever since you came into the hospital the first time. It’s just been a while, and I was holding back.”
I stared at her, but she seemed certain. And who was I to argue? Like she said, she was an adult. She was responsible for her own actions.
“All right,” I said. “Let me pay the bill, and we’ll get out of here.”
“All right,” Leila said evenly.
As we walked back toward my house, she nestled under my arm. It made it awkward to walk that way, but I didn’t mind. I liked having her warm curves pressed against me. “Are you sure about this?” I asked as we headed up the front walk.
In answer, she stopped, turning to face me and grabbing two fistfuls of my collar. She yanked my face down toward hers and kissed me hard. It might have been a while since she was on a date, but she was a good kisser: just the right amount of pressure, with a little bit of tongue sneaking in there. I groaned, wrapping my arms around her and pulling her even tighter against me in the night’s air.
Slowly, she started unbuttoning my shirt, and I pulled away with a laugh. “You might want to wait until we’re inside for that, darling,” I told her, winking down at her.
She fished in my pocket and dug out my keys, holding them up in the air. “Then let’s get inside,” she said breathlessly.
Fuck, there was something hot about the raw, carnal way she looked at me, like she wanted this even more desperately than I did. Which was saying something, given that my slacks already felt uncomfortably tight.
I grabbed the keys from her and led the way to the front door, fumbling to get it unlocked. I had just managed to shove the keys into the lock when she was on me again, pressing me back against the door and putting her lips insistently against mine for another kiss.
I growled and flipped us around, pressing her back against the door and pressing a leg in between hers. She ground down against me and broke the kiss with a gasp, quickly repeating the motion. I smirked at her. “Think you could get yourself off just like that?” I asked.
Her confidence flickered for a moment, and she looked bashfully up at me through her lashes. “If you don’t want this, all you have to do is say so,” she murmured.
I cut her off with another kiss, plunging my tongue into her mouth and drawing sweet little whimpers out of her. I reached around behind her to unlock the door, as she continued her way with the buttons of my sh
irt. She pushed the fabric back off my shoulders just as we tumbled through the front door, with me barely keeping the two of us on our feet.
I pulled back, grinning down at her. This was going to be fun, I could already tell.
14
Leila
Saturday
I didn’t know what possessed me to go back with Marcus to his place. I kept trying to remind myself that this wasn’t the type of girl I was. But I wanted him, in ways I had never wanted anyone before. I needed to get my hands on him, to explore his body and to let him explore mine. My panties had been damp practically from the time that he had shown up at the restaurant, maybe even before that. I was excited about this. And as much as I loved my life, there were so few things that excited me like this.
I had shown up early for the date, and I didn’t regret it. We’d had a great time, or at least I definitely had. He’d been so nice, and he’d really been listening to me, even as I babbled on about Gavin and Rachel and things that by all rights he shouldn’t care about. At first, I’d thought it was just because he was hoping to get into my pants by the end of the night.
But then he’d offered to walk me home and promised that he wouldn’t come up to my apartment even if I asked him to. When I really thought about it, that was the moment when I’d let my guard down. He was letting me take things at my own pace. Like he was genuinely a good guy. Whatever else he might be, whatever business he might have that had caused someone to stab him in the arm with a knife, he was a good guy.
There was no harm in going to bed with a good guy, was there? I trusted that if I didn’t want to do this again, he wasn’t going to force me. So why not give in to my desires?
When we’d kissed, it had been like lightning going through me. He’d teased me, on the front porch, asking if I could get off just by grinding against him like that. The truth was, I probably could have. It had been a while since I’d been with a guy, and to be honest, I hadn’t really taken care of myself in a while. I’d had a couple quick personal sessions, but nothing really earth-shattering. I was too exhausted to give myself a really good go, most times.
I had him halfway naked by the time we were in the front hall, running my hands all over his chest and torso. His sculpted body was warm and hard beneath my fingers, just like I’d expected it to be. His lips were supple against mine, letting me continue to set the pace.
I didn’t think we were going to make it to the bedroom, to be honest. And somewhere in the back of my mind, I thought that maybe I should be ashamed of that. But I was too caught up in the moment to really care, and anyway, that small flicker of shame just made lust burn all the hotter in my core.
Marcus didn’t bother to remove my dress; he just pushed it up and out of the way, pushing his fingers past my panties and deep inside my folds. I cried out in surprise, my knees going weak as all my focus turned toward the feeling of his fingers stroking the velvet between my legs.
He grinned dangerously and withdrew his fingers, then licked them slowly and deliberately. “I’m going to fuck you until you’re raw,” he murmured huskily, and I gave another of those full-body shivers that he somehow managed to elicit from me.
He caught my hips and walked me backward into a living room, not stopping until I was half sitting on the high arm of a couch. Now, he stripped me down, working methodically until I was naked before him. I shivered, again feeling that flicker of embarrassment, but the next thing I knew, he was on his knees in front of me, his mouth exploring the same territory that his fingers had explored out in the hallway.
He pushed one of my legs up and onto his shoulder, opening me up even further for him, and I suddenly became hyperaware that even though he had stripped off my dress, bra, and panties, I was still wearing the high, strappy heels that Rachel had insisted I wear. And fuck, that made me feel sexy, in a way that I never had before.
There was something about this not being able to keep our hands off one another. Something about the fact that he wanted me badly enough that we couldn’t take our time in making it toward the bedroom.
His tongue flicked across my nub as his fingers resumed their earlier position, buried knuckles-deep inside of me. Two fingers, or maybe three. I couldn’t tell anymore. All I could tell was that I was close to cumming already, his rhythm absolutely, maddeningly perfect. He worked his fingers in alternating rhythms so that one was always pushing deep inside of me as another dragged slowly down my inner walls.
I gasped, my whole body tensing as the heat crescendoed within me. My fingers twisted desperately into his hair, and then I was spilling over into blinding ecstasy.
He continued to toy with me, but more gently now, just easing me through my orgasm. I thought for a minute that that might be it, that he might be done with me. But once I had my breathing back, he stood up, helping me lie down on the couch. He kicked off his shoes and took off his pants and silky black boxer-briefs. And fuck, he was hard, his member thick and long, curving up toward his navel.
He covered my naked body with his, giving me only a moment’s notice before he pushed into me in one long, hard thrust.
I cried out, and he stilled, giving me a moment to adjust, even though I could feel his biceps twitching with the effort of holding still. Slowly, he began to move his hips, and I matched his rhythm, gasping as he nibbled at my neck. Even though I had just cum, it felt like I was already on the verge of spilling again, my whole body trembling with pleasure and passion.
Marcus’s teeth found my earlobe, raking across the sensitive skin, even as his fingers toyed with my breasts and his hips continued to snap into mine. It was as though he was there everywhere around me, stimulating every single nerve ending I had, and I was helpless to stop myself from orgasming a second time, a ragged moan spilling from my lips.
My pussy clenched tight and released, over and over again, dragging Marcus’s orgasm out of him as well. He groaned and fell forward against me, his body a comforting weight against mine as he shot his seed deep inside of me.
My whole body felt relaxed, as though some deep-seated need I didn’t know I had had finally been slaked. I took a deep breath and let my head fall back even farther against the couch, my eyes fluttering shut for a moment.
Marcus kissed my temple, grinning against my skin. “Hey,” he murmured, nuzzling me and then pulling away. “I was going to give you the full tour. So this is my living room.” He pulled away and sat up, reaching out a hand to help me up as well.
God, his living room. We hadn’t even made it upstairs. I was still in those fucking high heels.
The embarrassment returned, but this time, there was no accompanying flicker of lust to go with it, nothing to distract me from the fact that I had not only just put out on the first date but totally acted like a slut to go along with it.
“I should go,” I said immediately, even though despite my embarrassment, I really wanted to curl my body into his, to let him give me a proper tour, or maybe to let him carry me upstairs to his bed where we belonged.
I was a total tangle of emotions. I hadn’t felt this attracted to anyone ever, and I hadn’t done this in a long, long time. That want and lust were still there, somewhere inside of me, but there were all these other feelings as well. I knew better than to get tangled up with a guy like him. Passion like this could really burn a person.
And the last thing I needed was to turn this into something that was all cuddles and attachment. In fact, it was probably better, despite my embarrassment, that we had fucked down here in the living room. It was exciting and wild and impersonal. Just a quick fuck. And now it was time for me to leave.
“Why don’t you stay?” Marcus suggested, his thumb warm as it rubbed against my wrist.
I tugged my arm away, already starting to regret having slept with him. “I can’t,” I said shortly, already starting to dress myself again. I pulled out my phone, already dialing the number for a cab.
“Come on, don’t be like that,” Marcus said, standing still-naked in front of
me, reaching out to stroke my cheek. “If you’re not big on after-sex cuddles, that’s fine. I have a guest bedroom that you can stay in.”
“I have to work tomorrow,” I retorted, which was true, even if it had nothing to do with why I wasn’t going to stay.
God, I felt like I was going to cry. What was wrong with me?
How could I let myself do this?
I tried to smile. “Thank you,” I said to Marcus. “Tonight was fun.” I put an emphasis on the last word, as though all I was looking for was a little fun. I wasn’t looking for sleepovers or continued dating or anything else. This was a one-time thing.
Marcus frowned at me, looking as though he was trying very hard to figure me out. I almost wanted to know why. What was in it for him, if he could figure this out? What did he want from me?
For a moment, I considered sticking around. Just to see. I had initially thought that Marcus was just looking to fuck as well, but with the way he had been this evening, I was starting to wonder. He didn’t seem like the relationship type, but then again, he was turning out to not be the type of person that I’d initially pegged him as.
“I’ll call you,” Marcus said quietly. “I’d like to see you again.” He paused. “And I’m sorry if I took things too fast or if I upset you.”
I didn’t say anything. Instead, I turned away from him, heading for the door. The last thing I needed was to let my curiosity get me in over my head. This was fun. That was the way it was meant to be. But it wasn’t going to turn into anything more than that.