Love, Exes, and Ohs

by Violet Duke

  He chuckled. “Is that a complaint?”

  “No. But it does make me think of that saying about nice guys.”

  He frowned. “About us finishing last?”

  She let loose a slow, wicked smile that had his fists curling into the towel, and every muscle in his body tensing against her.

  “No…I think it’s the exact opposite.”

  Then she pounced on him.

  “Is this you starting on our partial benefits?” he rasped when her fingers unzipped his jeans, and found him hot and hard and waiting for her.

  “If you’re asking, then clearly I’m doing it wrong,” she murmured with a grin, repeating his own words back to him as she kissed her way down his rock hard torso.

  Slowly, she slid her hand down and then back up over his rigid length in one firm, fluid stroke, dragging a low, hissing curse out of him. And at least another hard inch. Wrapping her fingers around his base, she swiveled her hand to make up for what she couldn’t encircle, and then glided her tongue around him in a slow, deliberate circle.

  She’d forgotten how much she loved this.

  Feeling him lose control for once. Because of her. For her.

  Her tongue traced over the entire length of him before she eased him into her mouth fully, reacquainting herself with how thick he was, how impossibly hard he could get. Then she began pumping him at his base with both hands, squeezing, while her mouth took him in as deep as he could go.

  It was a heady thrill knowing her hands, her mouth were ripping these lusty groans out of him, each one in turn, vibrating through her and spurring her own arousal.

  Her next descent drew him all the way to the back of her throat.

  And his fingers finally speared through her hair. He sucked in a sharp, tortured breath as she repeated the motion again. Then suddenly, she was overcome by a dizzying erotic cocoon as he started thrusting gently into her mouth.

  Panting, he stopped. Thighs hard as granite, his engorged head nudging the back of her throat. Then she swallowed, just once, and felt a wave of lust hit her when his fingers tightened in her hair. She ignored the warning, however, and gave him another slow, rolling caress with her throat.

  A hoarse, guttural groan bursting from his chest was her instant reward.

  * * * * *

  What little restraint he had left in his brain was demolished at the snug fit of her mouth around his rock hard erection, her hands cupping him and squeezing him in a mind-erasing rhythm that had all functional reason and discernible sanity draining out of him at an alarming rate.

  Not to mention a serious lack of oxygen problem in his brain that was starting to blur his vision around the edges.

  Isaac didn’t care a damn bit.

  Strangling on his own lust, he began muttering words of love and lust, promises and threats, exposing every raw inch of his heart for her to claim as she took him closer and closer to the edge. But never close enough.

  “Xoey,” he gritted out through clenched teeth,

  Her name on his lips seemed to be the magical key. She purred against his throbbing length and took him all the way to his base, and he was powerless to stop it. He exploded, coming right down her throat, heart hammering, his entire body damn near short-circuiting.

  Jesus, he’d almost blacked out again.

  Pulling her up to her feet, he dragged her into his arms and dropped his forehead to hers, half groaning, half cursing. Regardless of her modified saying about nice guys, he really hadn’t wanted to ‘finish first.’

  Not that he was complaining, of course.

  While his brain attempted to stop his body from falling down into a deep sleep without ‘finishing’ her too, his hands traced lazy circles up and down her sides, flexing into her soft, feminine skin.

  She yelped and pulled back, hands covering her sides as a giggle burst out of her chest.

  He blinked at her and then grinned, all traces of his post-orgasm slumber gone.

  “You’re ticklish. How did I never know that?”

  He advanced on her slowly.

  She backed up. “Don’t you dare.”

  He chased her into the bedroom and cornered her as she hopped up on the bed, eyeing him warily. Never one to cat and mouse, he took two quick strides, and yanked her feet out from under her so she fell flat on her back on the mattress. He was on her in seconds.

  But she twisted and smoothly spun out from his grip, hooking her leg behind his knees to similarly send him tumbling onto his back on the bed.

  What the?

  “I didn’t teach you those moves.”

  She gave him an innocent double-blink. “While you were in Vegas, I got bored. So I took my three dwarfs over to The Pound. Some of your best guys spent a few hours showing me some new moves.”

  He growled, jealousy burning away in his gut. “You grappled on the mat with my guys? You had a bunch of half-naked guys touching you, rolling around with you, trying to pin you?”

  His thunderous questions came out as feral rumbles.

  And instead of answering any of them, she just returned with an impish ‘what’re-you-gonna-do-about-it’ smile.

  Dammit, the woman knew how to push his buttons.

  He flipped her onto her back again and stripped her rain-drenched jeans off of her.

  One taste.

  He just needed one taste to ground himself before he loved her slowly, gently.

  Pulling her panties to the side, he slid his tongue through her folds, circling over the tight feminine bud of arousal at her core, before groaning when the taste of her flooded his mouth, overwhelmed his senses.

  Criminy, she was just as sweet as he remembered.

  And he was too far gone.

  With one sharp yank, he tore her panties from her body, and spread her thighs wider for him so his eyes could feast on every last beautiful curve of her body.

  Dipping his head down, his lips and tongue relearned every contour, every sensitive dip and valley. Her soft, feminine stomach. Her navel ring. The slick heat between her thighs.

  Mouth latched onto one berry ripe nipple, he slid two fingers into her wet heat and curled into that spot that always pushed her to her limits.

  Almost immediately, he felt her inner muscles tighten around him like a vise, fluttering her toward her climax as she bucked against him, eyes shut, body his to control, to love. And her lips whispering his name over and over again.

  A low growl of pleasure vibrated from his chest.

  The onslaught of emotions that accompanied the pleasure of seeing her unravel before him, because of him was almost too much. With gentle affection, he plunged his fingers inside her one last time and circled the pulse-point between her legs with his tongue. The tandem assault instantly had her crying out his name, coming hard and fast as he pushed over the edge.

  Never had he felt this level of satisfaction from sharing ‘partial benefits’ with anyone before.

  But with Xoey, everything was different, better, more complete.

  Like two puzzle pieces, she reached up to intertwine her fingers with his as she slid into his arms, snuggling in. Tucking her against his chest, he dragged the blanket over them and felt himself drifting off almost instantly.

  A perfect fit.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  TWO OF THE MOST sexually-frenzied weeks of Xoey’s life slid by and, even without a single ‘full benefit,’ Xoey found that she’d never been more addicted to the man.

  And happy.

  She was definitely happy.

  But she had absolutely no idea how to proceed from here.

  “You guys, I need a relationship roundtable.” Xoey plopped down in the pub table where Sienna and Lia were having happy hour drinks.

  Lia glanced at Sienna. “How do we keep ending up here?”

  Sienna shrugged, laughing. “Xo, have you forgotten what happened the last time you discussed your love life with us? Clearly, Football Barbie and Martial Arts Barbie are not the best ones to be advising you on such matters.�
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  Xoey thunked her head against the table. “I don’t care; right now I’m Nervous Breakdown Barbie. And even though you two are just four testicles shy of being my two best guy friends, you’re still all I’ve got.”

  Lia pulled out her phone. “I’m calling in back-up this time.”

  Two minutes later, Quinn jogged over from Desert Confections to join them at the table. Dani was there a minute after that.

  “Okay, now you can proceed.” Sienna stopped covering her ears with her hands.

  Now that she had the floor, Xoey didn’t know where to begin. So she started with the first thing that popped into her head. “Isaac and I are trying out a ‘friends with benefits’ arrangement.”

  All four girls stared back at her like she’d lost her mind.

  She was really beginning to think she had. “I know, I know. Stupid right? We’re going to ruin our friendship beyond repair. I just… I can’t stop thinking about him, or wanting to be with him. Every time I tell myself to stop, I just…can’t—I love spending every night with him. And I find it harder and harder to picture being ‘just’ friends again. But every time I start convincing myself that maybe, just maybe we could give it a shot and start a relationship again, I end up thinking about what would happen if it didn’t work out.”

  Even the thought of it made fear slice her heart in two. “He’s my best friend. I can’t lose him.”

  “Who’s to say it wouldn’t work out, sweetie?” asked Dani. “You two are great together.”

  “We were always great together. That wasn’t the problem.”

  Quinn sighed. “Then what is the problem? Why did you two break up last year? Honestly, I thought you two were in it for the long haul.”

  “It’s hard to explain.”

  “Try,” said Lia. “Did you two have problems?”

  “No. Never. Sure, we’d bicker and have verbal spar matches all the time, but it was always in fun. And I loved being with him. Toward the end, before I broke it off with him, I even started to fantasize about the future. Matching wedding bands, house, kids, a dog.”

  She shot a sad glance over at Dani. “But then it happened.”

  Dani’s eyes softened with sympathy. “You are still hung up on him, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Sienna frowned. “Something tells me you’re not talking about Isaac.”

  “No, not Isaac.” Exhaling a long, slow breath, she started at the beginning. “It was a guy back in college, Dani and I talk about him sometimes. He was my first. He was handsome and smart and charismatic. Pretty perfect, in a business tycoon sort of way.”

  “The suit,” Quinn murmured.

  “Yep, the suit. There I was in a club in Phoenix, twenty years old using a fake ID to go drinking with my friends, and this suave, movie star gorgeous guy comes over to talk to me. He was drunk. Really drunk. But still so sweet. We both ditched our friends and just danced all night long. I don’t think we really talked about anything groundbreaking. I was pretty drunk too. But we connected. At least I thought we did.”

  That deep sense of hurt and betrayal she’d felt when she’d realized he’d played her was still as fresh today as it had been almost a decade ago. “I’d been saving myself for Mr. Right up until then. And yes, it was my own fault for getting drunk and going home with a guy whose last name I didn’t even know. But still, looking back, I truly don’t think it was the alcohol or even my own naiveté. Even now, I feel that rush in my veins, that throbbing of my heart whenever I think of him—regardless of the fact that he never called the next day.”

  “Well, it was your first time,” reasoned Sienna. “That’s a big deal. Are you sure your emotions aren’t tangled up with that?”

  “It happened before he took my virginity.” Her voice was near silent, as if she were trying to keep the secret from even herself. “It was dark, and he was holding me. He didn’t say a word. But he looked at me…like I was the miracle of life itself.”

  Dani leaned forward in surprise. “You never told me that.”

  “Because I knew how crazy it sounded. It wasn’t like that look was the reason why I’d slept with him. We were already headed down that road. He didn’t have to look at me like that. But he did. And I know how school girlish and foolish that sounds. Logically, I know no guy would look at a girl he’d picked up at a club like that. Not after a few hours. Maybe not ever.”

  She pressed a hand to her chest. “But I can’t forget that look. I had work the next morning—here, in fact—so I left him a note spouting some sort of fanciful starry-eyed drivel, I’m sure. Then I left. My only memory of him an old football jersey I’d borrowed to do my walk of shame.”

  Chuckling bitterly, she looked at Dani. “By the way, that’s where I got that Walter Payton jersey you saw once, the one signed by the entire Chicago Bears team after their 1985 Super Bowl victory.”

  Dani’s eyes bulged a little, as did Sienna’s, but they said nothing.

  That was loyalty right there.

  Because in truth, they should probably be reading her the riot act for taking a jersey worth a few thousand dollars. Not that she’d known it at the time. She’d just thought it was an old jersey that was long enough to cover her slightly ripped mini-skirt, and cheaper than his expensive work shirts. Irony of ironies.

  Staring off into space, she tried, just as she had countless times, to conjure his face, and as always, she failed. All she could see were his eyes, cloaked in darkness…and that look.

  “How is it that even though I can’t even remember what the guy looks like, even though I never even knew his name, even though I was heartbroken when he never called…all my stupid heart can register when I think about him, is that one look?”

  All four girls stared back at her with varying degrees of sympathy, but not one answer.

  Xoey turned to Quinn. “So to answer your question, the reason why I broke up with Isaac was because even as great as it was with him, I still found myself thinking about the ghost of Christmas ass.” She tried to laugh but it came out stale. “That wasn’t fair to Isaac, and I didn’t want our relationship to keep going that way. I think I convinced myself that he couldn’t be my Mr. Right…if I was still thinking about Mr. Wrong while I was with him.”

  Lia reached over at squeezed her shoulder. “Xo, I can’t say that I know what you’re going through. But I do know what it’s like to be in love with a ghost. Literally. After Leo went MIA on deployment, I didn’t get over him for years. Probably not fully until I met Hudson. But it wasn’t because of the hold he still had on my heart. It was because I was still holding on to him, holding onto the things I thought I’d only have with him—the friendship, the happy memories, my past. Maybe for you, you’re holding onto your ghost because that look gave you a feeling you’re scared of not having again. Maybe you’re holding onto him for reasons you haven’t even realized. But Xoey, just like I had to accept that not only was Leo not coming back, but even if he did, I wasn’t the same girl he left when he was deployed. The girl I’d been back then belonged with the boy he’d been back then. The woman I am now? That’s the version of me that had to find a way to let him go, to allow my heart to be free to love Hudson.”

  “She’s right,” chimed in Dani. “You’re not the same girl you were back then. Far from it. That version of you, I don’t see at all anymore. If you let that old you hold on to your ghost, because of a feeling you had eons ago…you might miss out on the chance for this version of you to experience the same connection…or one infinitely better.”

  “So you’re all saying I should just jump in and try this fully with Isaac?”

  “No, honey.” Quinn shook her head empathetically. “We’re saying you have to truly let go of your first Mr. Wrong before you decide anything else. Whatever ties he has to your heart. And believe me, I know it’s hard. I had to do it with my ex. Even though he gave me Cooper, the best thing in my life next to Rylan, I had to find a way to detangle that from what he did, and
who he was, and who I was.”

  Don’t they think she’s tried?

  “It’ll take time,” said Lia, as if reading her mind. “You can’t force it, but you do have to be open to it. Eventually, it’ll happen.”

  “Will that cure me?” asked Xoey, wanting so bad to have what Lia described…her heart to be completely free to love Isaac.

  “I think a cure is asking a lot from an exorcism,” replied Dani with an encouraging smile. “But at the very least, when you figure out and cut loose those ties your ghost has on your heart, you can expect it to help you make the decision that’s right for you with Isaac.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  XOEY WOKE UP to the sound of her alarm and quickly hit the snooze button before the sleeping bear of a man beside her woke up.

  The same bear of a man who’d shared her bed every night this week.

  Best week ever.

  Since talking to the girls, she’d eased up a little on all the questions and decisions about the future, and allowed herself to reflect more about her past without feeling foolish or guilty. Doing so didn’t miraculously fix her or uncover the yellow brick road for her. But it helped.

  She still didn’t have any new answers for Isaac, and of course, he was being his usual wonderful self about it. She couldn’t think of one guy who would settle for anything less than a homerun once the batters got on the bases. But Isaac never complained.

  In fact, he damn well invented new games that made homeruns almost unnecessary.

  This morning, her body was still tingling from his efforts.

  The long, rather spectacular night they’d spent pushing the envelope of ‘partial benefits’ had been quite the creative adventure on both their parts.

  “Honey, if you need to meet that vendor this morning, you better stop with those sexy smiles. Because I’m about two heartbeats away from flipping you over and pinning you under me.”

  Been there, gloriously done that.

  “I warned you.”

  She yelped when Isaac’s big burly arm darted out from the covers and clamped down around her waist. Ignoring her mock-complaints about early morning beard burn, he dragged her on top of him and nuzzled her as he arranged her just so. When he was satisfied with the fit between his man bits and her lady bits, he proceeded to lazily latch his mouth onto her nipple, while stroking every inch of her he could reach with his warm, calloused hands.