by Carrie Quest
“I came to the hospital,” he says. “After your accident.”
I drop my hands and take a step back, staring up at him in shock. “What?”
“I was in Vermont for a Burton event when it happened. I rented a car and drove to Boston. I knew it was stupid—that you probably hated me—but I couldn’t stand the idea of you being hurt and alone. So I went.”
“What happened?”
“I ran into Zoe in the lobby. She told me to leave, and when I wouldn’t do it, she called security on me.”
“Security?”
His lips twist into a rueful smile and red stains his cheeks. “Yeah. They dragged me out. I’m lucky nobody there knew who the hell I was because it wasn’t pretty.”
“She didn’t tell me.” I reach up and trace the strong line of his cheekbone, letting my finger drift down along his jaw, outlining his embarrassed blush. “I didn’t know.”
“I figured.” He looks away. “I snuck back in later and found your room, but you were asleep and you weren’t, um, alone. There was a guy in there, sitting with you and holding your hand, so I left.”
He’s gone completely still now, his body tense and wary. His eyes dart back to me, then slide away, examining the corner of our little closet like he’s the dust bunny inspector and he’s about to file the longest report ever. I think about what that must have been like for him, to drive all that way, to be so desperate to see me and then to find me with another guy.
If I had rushed to his bedside and found another girl holding his hand, I would probably have cried so hard that dehydration would have set in and I would have checked into the same hospital to get an IV.
“That was Morgan. He was another skater.”
Gabe’s dark brows pull closer together in a scowl. “I know who he is.”
Oh. Oh. A little tickle of warmth moves through me, which proves that I am a horrible human, because a good person wouldn’t enjoy knowing he was jealous when he saw Morgan in that room with me. That he went to the trouble to find out who Morgan was and why he might have been there.
“We weren’t together,” I say. “I mean, he might have wanted to be, and we were friends, but there was nothing romantic there, at least on my end.”
Gabe lets out a long breath and his eyes flicker back to mine. “No?”
I shake my head.
“Good to know,” he mumbles. The red stain breaks through the lines I drew along his face, spreading down his neck and disappearing beneath the soft collar of his shirt. My fingers drift down, following it.
“Those pictures aren’t real,” he says. “My father sets them up. It’s all for show.”
My hand stills for a moment. I’ll want to ask more about that, later. But right now, I don’t want to think about the pain and the past anymore. I want to let it all go and just be. “Good to know,” I echo.
His breath hitches as I trace the cotton collar, letting my touch linger for a moment in the hollow of his throat. A flash of memory hits—seeing him at the edge of the rink one day at practice and skating over, standing up on my skates, toe picks digging into the ice, so I could press a kiss in this exact spot. His low groan when my tongue flicked out to lick his neck. His whispers about what he was going to do to me when he got me back to my room.
He groans again now, the sound twisting up with my memory, tangling my thoughts until I feel breathless and dizzy.
Or maybe it’s being this close to him that’s making me feel this way.
Whatever it is, I like it.
I want more.
I want to be closer.
6
Gabe
Belle is touching me.
Belle. Is. Touching. Me.
I hold my breath and stare down at her as she runs her fingers along my cheeks. Her mouth is slightly open, those luscious lips parted just enough that I can see the pink tip of her tongue. I want to lower my head and plunder that mouth, tangle my tongue with hers until she’s whimpering for more, but I’m frozen. There’s a look of wonder on her face, her eyes soft and starry as she gazes up at me, and I’m afraid that if I move too fast—or at all—I’ll break the spell and she’ll remember that we don’t do this anymore.
Except now we do, apparently. Because she isn’t stopping.
My hat goes flying. Her hand hits the zipper of my fleece and she pauses just long enough for my stomach to drop with disappointment. I prepare myself to move away, to let her go, but she draws in a deep, shaky breath and pulls the zipper down. Slowly. So slowly that I can hear every single one of the metal teeth breaking apart until she makes it to my bellybutton. Then the heavy rasp of my breath drowns everything else out.
She holds my gaze, a question in her eyes, and I nod. Yes. Keep going. Don’t stop.
Please don’t ever stop.
She tugs on the end of the zipper and the heel of her hand ghosts over my dick, which is so hard I’m surprised it hasn’t punched through these threadbare old jeans to get to her. I grunt and she smiles, a little tilt of her lips that means she’s pleased with herself. She pushes my jacket off my shoulders, and I stand there and let her undress me, completely in her power, waiting to see what comes next.
Or who comes next.
Fuck, but I hope someone will be coming soon.
She reaches back and shuts the lid of the old wooden trunk, then pushes me backward, her fingers digging into my pecs, until I can’t go any farther. Her hands move up to my shoulders, and she pulls me down until I’m sitting in front of her, then drops her arms to her sides. Our faces are at the same level now and we stare at each other, both of us panting, breathing in the same air but not touching. Not yet.
Her pupils are huge, blown out with lust, making her dark blue eyes look black. She pulls on the belt of her coat and it falls open, giving me a glimpse of a soft black sweater that clings to her curves. My throat goes dry and my fingers twitch, desperate to reach out and touch her, but I press them into my thighs. This is her show, at least for now.
She shrugs out of the coat and steps closer, closing the last inches between us, and I spread my legs so she can stand between them. She leans in and I’ve never been so aware of my own body. Every single point of contact tingles, from my calves to my chest, where her soft breasts are pushed up against me, pressing closer with every breath she takes.
Her hands skim up my body to cradle my cheeks, and she grins suddenly, like she just thought of the best idea ever and she wants to share it. It’s infectious and I can’t help but smile back, joy rushing through me.
“I’m thinking of kissing you,” she whispers.
“I’m thinking of letting you,” I answer.
Her eyes drop to my lips and my heart pounds. I feel alive, like I’m waking up for the first time in years, all my senses on high alert and thirsty for sensation. I breathe in the scent of roses wafting from her hair and bring my hands to her waist, running my rough hands gently over the soft wool of her sweater, then dipping them underneath to catch the silkiness of her skin.
She lets out a breathy little moan as soon as I touch her, and then she lowers her lips and kisses me. Softly at first, sweet and almost innocent, like she’s trying to remember how our lips fit together. Like maybe she hasn’t kissed anybody else in a really long time.
That thought makes me groan, and I tug her even closer, possessive and needy, feeling some kind of caveman urge to show her she’s mine. That she’ll always be mine.
She gasps and sucks my lower lip into her mouth, pressing her teeth down to nip me before she lets it go, like she’s marking me with a cavewoman gesture of her own.
Yeah, I’m all yours. Every inch of me.
Then she’s licking at my mouth, and I open for her and the kiss turns hungry and hard in seconds. She slicks her tongue against mine and I catch it, sucking it into my mouth the way I remember makes her squirm. Her hips twitch, and I drop my hands to her ass, flipping that little black skirt up and pressing her heat against my cock. She moans and rubs herself against m
e, tight little circles that make my eyes roll back in my head.
More. I need more. I need all of her.
My hands are wild now, frantic, plunging into the waistband of those tights to grab her ass and then tugging at her sweater. I can’t get it off without breaking our kiss so I settle for flicking her bra open and cupping her breasts. Fuck. They’re heavy and soft and her nipples are little points, digging into my palms, begging for attention. I roll them between my fingers, feeling them harden, remembering how they swell until they look like rosy raspberries. Delicious.
“I need my mouth on you.” My voice is hoarse and desperate. Belle nods and pulls her sweater off, then shrugs out of her bra and stands there, hair covering her shoulders and tumbling down her back, waiting for me. She’s panting, her lips swollen and wet, and I can’t resist one more hard kiss before I lower my head and suck a nipple into my mouth.
She cries my name and her head falls back. I release her, the wet popping noise loud and dirty in our tiny space, and begin to tease, licking circles on both her breasts, stopping to suck just long enough to leave little red marks, but staying away from those hard little berries, shaking my head and smiling when she pushes them toward my mouth.
Then she beats me at my own game by bringing a hand up and pinching one, twisting and playing with herself while I watch until I can’t take it anymore. I push her hand out of the way and suck as much of her breast as I can into my mouth, hollowing my cheeks and pulling hard, stopping only to switch sides while she holds my head, pushing my face into her and tugging my hair and begging for more.
I’d be happy—fucking ecstatic—to keep this up for hours, but Belle pushes me back after a while. She grabs the bottom of my shirt and pulls it off me, then reaches for the button of my jeans. I’m so ready to go that I’m afraid I’ll come as soon as she touches me, just erupt all over her hand like a fucking horny volcano. I close my eyes because the sight of her breasts, still slick from my mouth and bouncing up and down as she sucks in deep breaths, is not going to help me last.
She unzips my jeans, reaches into my boxer briefs, and pulls out my dick. Oh, god. I thrust into her fist a few times, but before I know it her hand disappears and a rush of sweet air blows over me as she drops to her knees and runs her tongue around my tip. She pulls me into the wet heat of her mouth, and I claw at the wood of the chest, fingers scrambling for purchase, needing something to hold onto. Something to ground me so I don’t float away on this cloud of pleasure and lose myself completely.
Her hand jacks me slowly and her mouth—fuck—I open my eyes to see her staring up at me, her gaze hungry, her puffy lips wrapped tight around my dick as her head bobs up and down. My pants are around my ankles and her hair tickles the insides of my thighs. I reach out and grab a handful, letting it run through my fingers, trying to calm down so I don’t lose control and start fucking her mouth until I come. It’s been so long and she’s so gorgeous and it’s Belle, my Belle, on her knees in front of me, taking everything I have to give her.
Then she flicks the sweet spot under my head with her tongue and grabs my balls and it’s all over. The pressure builds up, tingling all over my body, until it I can’t hold it in anymore, and suddenly my hips are pumping and I’m shouting out her name as pure bliss rushes through me, and my whole life comes down to Belle’s mouth and my cock and this moment.
I come hard and she stays with me, swallowing every drop, only releasing me when I pull her into my arms and hold on tight. We stay like that for a moment, our bare chests glued together, hearts pounding in perfect rhythm.
Belle. Back in my arms. Warm and soft and wanting.
I’ve never been this happy.
“You’re amazing,” I tell her, pushing her hair back so I can trace the shell of her ear with my tongue and drop a kiss on the soft skin behind her lobe. She shivers and pulls me into a deep kiss that has my dick stirring again already.
I pull away from her, squeezing her hand so she knows I’ll be back, and open the trunk. When the lid popped up before I saw a stack of what looked like blankets, but when I pull the first one out, I see they’re actually fur coats. Sleek, soft, black fur that runs through my fingers like water as I shake out two coats and lay them on the ground. I pull Belle into another kiss, then lower us both carefully down to the ground so she’s on her back and I’m kneeling between her legs.
She moves languidly, like she’s in a dream, writhing against the silky fur as I slowly peel off her skirt and her stockings. Her panties are next, and I grab those with my teeth, taking a moment to press my face against her heat and breathe her in. Roses and musk and woman and Belle. Belle. My tongue snakes out to lick her over the silk, and she gasps and tilts her hips toward my mouth, wanting more.
Then the scrap of silk is gone, tossed into a dusty corner, and my fingers are playing in her little patch of auburn curls as I lower myself down to where I’ve wanted to be for the last three years. She spreads for me and waits, trembling, as my fingers trail down and dip into her. She’s slippery wet and burning hot around my finger as I slide it in and slowly start to move, crooking it up to hit that spot inside her that drives her wild.
Then I lower my head and steal a taste of her, a tiny brush of my tongue across her clit, and her stomach tenses up. Her inner muscles squeeze my finger, and that’s it, I can’t tease her anymore. I need her to come, hard, until her body is flying the same way mine was a few minutes ago. And then I need to push into her swollen heat and feel that tight grip on my cock as we both come again.
I sweep my tongue over her clit, circling around and around, feeling all her muscles tense as her body spirals closer to orgasm. Then, when she’s keening my name and her wetness is dripping down her thighs, I suck that little nub into my mouth and feel her fall apart.
When she stops trembling, I kiss my way up her body, stopping at all my favorite places, giving her time to recover. Then we’re face to face and she’s smiling up at me like I’m a god as I brace myself over her, careful not to crush her soft body into the fur.
A smart guy would do just about anything to make sure the most beautiful girl in the world kept looking at him like that.
“You turned me into a puddle,” she tells me. “And I still want more.”
I push my erection into her belly and drink in her satisfied smile. “I can give you more.”
Let me give you everything.
I line myself up at her entrance and she reaches down to run her hands over my ass, pulling me closer. I lower my hips just a little, enough to sink my tip into her heat, and we both gasp. She’s slick and tight, and I want to plunge into her and never leave. But something is niggling at me, teasing my sex-bombed brain, and it suddenly hits me.
“I don’t have a condom.” I look wildly around the room, like maybe there’s a free condom dispenser I somehow missed before, but of course there isn’t.
I try to pull out but she keeps those hands on my ass, urging me deeper, and instead I sink in another inch.
“I don’t have a condom, Belle,” I say again, because maybe she didn’t hear me and I’m trying to be the guy she deserves here, but fuck fuck fuck, it’s hard to think when I’m inside her.
She keeps holding on, not letting me leave.
“I’m on the pill,” she says. “And I haven’t been with anyone since you. Are you clean?”
I close my eyes, that unfamiliar caveman feeling rushing through my body at her words. Nobody since me. Nobody else has tasted her sweetness or felt the ripples of her pussy around his fingers and his tongue as she came. She. Is. Mine.
It shouldn’t make a difference and hell, I’d want her just as much if she’d been with twenty guys, but it still fills me with a deep sense of masculine satisfaction. I’m an asshole, I guess, but at the moment I can live with that.
“I’m clean,” I assure her, gazing into her eyes. “I haven’t been with anyone in over a year and they tested us for everything before the Games.”
She nods. “Okay. I trus
t you.”
Damn. That one hits me straight in the heart because I’m not sure I deserve her trust, but I do know I’ll spend every day of the rest of my life earning it, if she’ll let me.
I hold her eyes and sink slowly inside her, pushing into that perfect heat until I can’t go any farther. I pause then, taking her mouth in sweet, soft, lingering kisses until she’s squirming under me and every muscle in my body is screaming at me to move.
Then I pull out and push back in, slow and steady, tilting my hips until I find the spot that makes her mouth form a perfect circle as she gasps and moans. I keep going, fighting back my own orgasm, until she says “oh, god. Oh, Gabe,” and reaches out to grab my forearm, holding tight as she comes. Then I let go, pumping my hips into her as the release rushes through me and the only thought in my mind is that I need to do this again, with her, over and over, as many times as I can. Hopefully forever.
7
Belle
Gabe digs around in the trunk and unearths three more fur coats. He folds one carefully into a pillow and drapes the other two over us, then lies back and pulls me into his arms. My head rests on his chest, our legs tangle together, and I sigh, completely at peace.
“I love hearing you make that sound.” He tightens his arms around me and presses a kiss to the top of my head. “It means I’ve made you happy.”
I laugh. “Happy might be an understatement.”
“Even better.”
There are a million things I should be thinking about right now: What sleeping with Gabe means, what I’m going to do about Catie tomorrow, how the hell we’re going to get out of this closet… But I’m too relaxed to care. My worries float to the top of my mind like white fluffy clouds, distant and nonthreatening, and I let them go. I turn my focus to the silky softness of the fur on my skin. The strong thump of Gabe’s heart beneath my ear and the way his fingers are stroking my back, moving slowly up and down, soothing and comforting and right. For the first time in years I know that I’m exactly where I belong.
