“What’s different here?” He leaned against the door beside me and I had this image of a guy I’d dated in high school doing that move on a locker. Flirting.
This felt totally different. New and exciting like boys were to me back then, but also real. This was me. I had this flash—wholly inappropriate considering we’d known each other for such a short time—in which I understood that this was it. Zach was the one. I’d love him one day. Maybe not right now or next week, but he was it for me.
There was a stirring of self-doubt. Would he feel the same? Wouldn’t he want to play the field a bit, once he’d gotten a taste of things with me?
“What are you arguing with yourself about?” he asked, proving how right I was about needing to love him soon.
“This is different because…” Tell him the truth. “Because I like you too much. I don’t want to mess it up.”
“Yeah?” He reached out slowly, and ran the backs of his knuckles down my jaw, and my neck, over my chest, where they skimmed one achingly hard nipple. I gasped and he smiled. “I like you, too, Veronica Cruz.” He caressed back up the same path, more sensitive than on the way down, hooked his fingers under the hem of my shirt and dragged it to my breast, which he cupped. A finger and thumb tweaked that same, sensitive nipple and my entire body shuddered. “Am I doing this right?”
CHAPTER 5
Y es, God, yes, he was doing it right.
The way he touched me was just the tip of the iceberg. His voice close to my ear was another layer, his infinite patience, too, with all things sensory. There were so many other elements that I couldn’t quite remember as he bent to retrieve the drugstore bag and led me up the stairs to his room.
It was another stark setting, without lamps or adornment. Funny how my perceptions had changed in such a short time. I liked how simple it was.
It took a second or two for me to realize he wasn’t moving, but just stood beside his bed, clutching the plastic bag in his hands.
“You okay?” I asked, afraid to step farther into his space.
“You know how many times I’ve imagined this?” He gave a surprised little sound. “I don’t actually know what comes next.”
I was almost afraid to ask, “What do you picture or how do you…what do you imagine?”
“It’s surreal, I guess, now that I think about it.” He grinned, so I relaxed a tiny bit. “There’s no clothing. I’m just naked. And hands come out.” He swallowed. “It’s been your hands, the past few times.”
Oh, I felt that in my belly. Following whatever instinct that was, I went to him, pried the condoms from his grasp, and put them on the bedside table, then moved in close and whispered against his ear. “Let’s get your shirt off.”
He didn’t help me, really, besides lifting his arms, nor did he get in my way as I pulled the shirt up and over, and threw it on the floor.
I moved my hands to his waist and he stopped them with his. “What about yours?” he asked, sending a trail of goosebumps from my neck down my arm, to my fingers where they touched his skin.
“Okay.” I lifted my arms and waited for him to undress me. “Want me to get my bra?”
“I hear they’re complicated,” he said with that wide, superhero smile.
“Pain in the ass.”
“Show me.”
I grabbed his hand, ran it along the band of my bra to the back and he mirrored the move on the other side, met in the middle and unhooked that thing without a moment’s hesitation.
His breath was gratifyingly shaky when he ran his hands around to my breasts. I couldn’t help the long, low moan that came out of my mouth. It was good. Every feather-light touch, every pinch and exploration was lovelier than anything I’d felt before.
“Now you take off your pants,” I breathed. “And I’ll do mine.”
We made quick work of them. He hesitated at the bottom. “Underwear?”
“Yeah. Take it off, too.”
He did it without comment under my greedy gaze. I opened my mouth to tell him how beautiful he was and then hesitated. What would that mean to him? How would he feel knowing I could see him but he could never reciprocate? I’d tell him, someday. Just not right this second, when there was too much of him to learn.
There were maybe two steps between us by the time we’d both fully unclothed. Weird how naked I felt in front of someone who couldn’t see me. This didn’t mean he didn’t pay attention to me. He could feel me, and hear my every small reaction. He proved this when his hand found a ticklish spot on my side, and when he bit me, very gently, on the neck.
“You like that,” he whispered and did it again.
We wound up on his bed, limbs moving in search of the next great discovery, the next keen pleasure. Our bodies twisted and turned and every little thing was a sensation to be enjoyed. I closed my eyes and ate it up—each second, each smell, each sound. I wound up on top after a bit, let my eyes open, and finally told him, “You’re beautiful.”
“So are you.”
“How can you tell?” My body moved up and back, up and back.
“You feel good, you smell good. This,” He grasped my hips and used me to stroke him. It made a wet sound that made me cringe and him sigh. “That noise is the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard. Other than your voice.”
“My…” I trailed off when he reached between my legs, slid his finger between my lips and explored me in a way I’d never before been touched.
His “Ohhhhhh” was delighted. “I love making you happy like this. Where’s your…” He hesitated for the first time since we’d collapsed onto his bed. “Your clit. Is this it?”
I nodded and swallowed a yelp.
“I think it must be.”
“How do you even know?”
“I read books, you know.” At his urging, I rolled off him, so we lay facing each other on the bed. “I’ve listened to porn, because I’m curious.” His tone changed. “Oh, you like this? When I put my finger in you like this? What if I fuck you with two?”
I had no words left. Nothing except guttural, animal grunts and sighs. But he liked that, I could tell. He kissed me once when I got really loud, sort of eating up the sound, and then went back to the job of fucking me with his fingers. He found my g-spot and stroked it in his merciless pursuit of pleasure.
“I want…”
I tried to tell him that this wasn’t going to work, or maybe that he needed to hurry; put on a condom or… I didn’t know. I had no freaking clue.
“Hold on.” He reached behind him and came up with the box, tore it open, and then made quick work of sliding a condom over his erection. I’d have to ask him how he’d gotten so good at that. One day. Just not right now. Not when the only thing I could think about was how he would feel.
He laid a warm hand on my waist. “Which…what position?”
“You want to be on top?” I whispered, conscious of how easy this was—talking to a man about sex. This was a new experience.
“I don’t…” He laughed and gave me a squeeze. “I want to do all the positions. I want to try everything. Top, bottom, back, front, God, if we could do it all at once, I would die a happy man.”
I rolled into him and let him feel my answering giggle, then the sigh that followed it. “You know what, Zach? This—without even doing it yet—is the best sex I’ve ever had. Ever. You don’t… We could do it on our heads and it would blow my mind.”
“Is that a challenge?”
“No.” My cheeks hurt from smiling and I had to kiss him, right there, as hard as I could. I had to show him with my mouth what he couldn’t see—that tears had sprung to my eyes. That the feelings he created in me were too big for my body. “How about…” I slid my leg over his thigh and shifted closer, reached between us and reveled in his reaction to my touch on his cock. I got as close as I could, fitted him to me, and whispered, “You ready?”
“Yeah. Jesus, yeah.”
“Okay. I’ll just… We can do it here. Like this.” I removed my hand and
shifted my hips forward and then—I couldn’t help it—I watched his face as I took him into my body. His eyes were closed, and it was the first time I’d seen him like that, utter concentration written sharply on his features. His cheeks were pink, the skin appearing stretched over the bones—they looked wider, harder, his brows darker. All of him seemed like more than he’d been before.
He slid in an inch, then another—it was a sweet, slow penetration that I would never forget. Finally, once he was seated as far as he could at this angle, I put my hands on his ass and held him there, squeezed him, so wonderfully aware of his body in mine.
“I want to move,” he finally said.
“Do it.”
He shifted his hips back and pressed them forward again, back and forward, the rhythm steady and effective. I felt a tickle of something like an orgasm brewing, but we’d never get there on our sides like this.
“I need…can you get on top?”
I didn’t have to ask twice. With a single roll, he was over me, his hands framing my shoulders and, there, oh, there, everything changed. I could feel it—the tension and friction and pleasure building—and I could see it on his face. His expression—so close to pain—had me mesmerized.
“I wanna…”
“What, Zach?”
“I wanna fuck you harder. Really hard.”
Those words made my body tighten convulsively around him. His voice was rough when he asked, “You like that? You want it?”
“Yeah. Do it.” I egged him on, my hands grabbing his ass with a slap.
“Oh, fuck,” he muttered into my neck. “I can’t last like this.”
“Don’t. Just do it. Hard. I love it.”
He leaned back a bit, and I let my eyes go down to where he entered me. “It looks amazing.”
He slowed. “Yeah?”
“You, like this. Fucking me. God, I want to describe it for you.”
“Maybe next time.” He smiled and picked up the pace.
“Here, give me your hand.” He slowed his movements, almost to a stop and put his weight on one arm. I grasped his hand and brought it to that place, so he could feel us.
He moaned as his fingers tightened around his cock and then moved to find my clit, more surely than any partner I’d ever had.
My voice joined his, our chorus hot and rough and animal. I wouldn’t last if his fingers kept circling like that, but the way his breath came told me he was just as close. And then, so suddenly that it shocked even me, it was there. Every part of me tensed, my eyes slammed shut, my mind spun high on the crest of climax, suspended as the orgasm passed through my body, my fingers and toes fizzing with almost electric aftershocks.
It wasn’t until the last tremor had passed that I realized I’d have to start breathing again, or pass out. Suddenly too sensitive, I put my hand on his to still him.
“Oh, my God,” I finally managed.
“Good?”
“I can’t even describe it.”
“Good.” He sounded smug, and I liked that. I wanted that smugness for myself.
“You can move again,” I told him, urging his hips toward mine. “Come on. I want you to get there, too.”
He was slower to start up again, but after a bit, his hips took over. He thrust a few times, then slowed for one or two, then sped up again. I wanted it like this, I wanted it fast. I could tell, after a bit, that he was almost there. It was the way he stopped making noise, dipped his head to press it into my shoulder and then and slammed into me, out of control and messy and so fucking perfect. A couple dozen times and he was done, pressing into me hard—silent until it was over and then still, his weight heavy on me. Heavy and warm and perfect.
“You okay?” I finally whispered.
He shook with what I hoped was a laugh. “Jesus. Yes. Better than okay.” He turned to take my mouth in a possessive, smug, happy kiss. “Is it weird to say that I love you?”
I shook my head and kissed him back to cover up the big, ugly cry trying to claw itself out. It was raw and emotional, this thing he’d set off inside me and I had no idea what to do with it. I wanted to answer, to give him back his words, but I was suddenly scared.
“THAT WAS the wrong thing to say, wasn’t it?” he asked as he came back from the bathroom, his question an echo of that night on his porch.
I shook my head in response and then voiced it. “It wasn’t. Not at all.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I just… You’ve got more courage than me. I guess that’s what it is.”
“I have more courage than you? The guy who never leaves his house is more courageous than the schoolteacher running for city council?”
“You’re blind, Zach.”
“Are you saying you’ve never seen a blind person? Living life out in the world?”
“I have, but—”
“You’re the one who’s brave. You’re the one willing to get out there and fight, while I do everything from here. I’m hiding.”
“I don’t feel brave.” I wrapped my arm around his chest and stole some of his warmth.
“Why’d you run? I mean you explained who you’re fighting for, but what was the last straw? Or was it a gradual thing?”
“It was gradual, I guess. And then sudden.”
“Oh, that clears it up.”
I gave him a light smack to the chest and then kissed it.
“It was the library,” I finally told him. “Library and lunch, in the same day.”
“What do you mean?”
“They proposed to cut funding for both the school library and the city branch, downtown.”
“I had no idea.”
“Well, you wouldn’t. It doesn’t exactly make headlines with all the crap happening around us nowadays. But these little things matter, you know? There are folks who wouldn’t read a book if not for the library. It’s a place to learn, to congregate. It’s shelter and warmth. I grew up hoarding library books because of the pleasure they brought me.”
“What about the lunches?”
“The policy in our school system has always been to let kids accrue debt as the school year goes on. We’d never turn away a kid who couldn’t afford to pay. And it’s a buck fifty, you know?” I couldn’t stop the tears from clouding my eyes, but I wiped them before they rolled onto his chest. “If a family can’t afford to send their babies to school with that much cash—even when they’re already on a reduced lunch program—how can they possibly get them clothes or books, for heaven’s sake. So, our fiscally conservative school board has voted to make those kids pay, starting next year. Can you picture the embarrassment? You’re ten years old and you get to the register and Nana Schwartz has to shake her head no that you can’t have that crappy slice of pizza and carton of milk? Every kid will see that you’re one of the poor ones? And what if it’s the only food you’re getting all day?” He was stroking me now, not interrupting or making any noise, just giving me that slow, easy comfort. Jesus, I didn’t want to love a man I’d met just this month, but I couldn’t help it.
I couldn’t.
“Those babies, when I’ve got them in my class. They’re four or five and they’re hungry to learn. Playing is learning, you know, and they’re smart. They want to read, they want to count. They want it all so badly. But if they’re malnourished, if they haven’t eaten a veggie in two weeks? If they don’t have a single book in their house? If their parents can’t read enough to decipher their field trip permission slips—much less pay for that field trip? Well…” I sniffed and he rolled into me, wrapped both arms around me and held me as tightly as I needed. Just as tight.
“I’ll bet you pay for them to go, don’t you?”
I cry-laughed and nodded against him.
“You’re amazing. You know that, right?” When I started to shake my head, he held me tighter, put his chin to the top of my head and made a happy sound. “You are some kind of magic, Veronica Cruz, waltzing into my life like this. I know it’s cheesy to say, but I feel like t
he luckiest man in the world.”
Choosing to believe him, at least for now, I sighed and settled into him and slept like a baby.
CHAPTER 6
I t was the day before the election and I was tired, but buzzed. The last few weeks had gone by in a blur, with more and more people signing on to my campaign. It was a relief when new donors and supporters came onboard, beyond the initial wave of college kids. I’d come this far practically alone, but now that I had people behind me, I could almost see myself winning. Almost.
I attended two city council meetings, trying the entire time to picture myself up there, with the others. The resulting image was a mixture of What am I getting myself into? and the excitement of effecting actual change. What would it feel like to have my voice heard?
That opened a whole new line of worry, of course—what if I said stupid things?
I finished teaching my preschoolers about the Antarctic, canvassed a hole in my sparkly purple sneakers, and spent most of my time mooning over Zach Hubler. Even when I wasn’t with him, I relived every last conversation, every necking session. The phenomenal sex.
The younger campaigners spoke about Zach—or Horde, which made me roll my eyes—in hushed voices and regarded me as some kind of emissary from their god. I was tempted, once or twice, to mention that he lived in this town, a few blocks over, just to see how they’d react, but that would be a betrayal.
When I Googled his real name, I got a few random social media profiles—none of them him—and Horde brought up too many hits: a movie, software, some gaming thing I didn’t even try to understand. There was nothing about the world of finance, nothing about my Zach.
I was waiting for the bus, bone tired, when I texted him that my cell was dying and I’d see him tomorrow night. He replied with a photo of a champagne bottle, two glasses beside it. I smiled and nearly bumped into someone.
“Oh, sorry.”
“Hey, congrats!” replied the woman. It took me a couple seconds to place her as one of the girls from that group of canvassers who’d pointed my way to Zach. It was a little under a month ago, but it felt like years.
Rogue Desire: A Romance Anthology (The Rogue Series) Page 5
