by Zoe York
“I said it’s hard,” she whispered, hating how awful she felt. This felt wrong, on all levels, but she couldn’t relax, either.
“Do you want me to take you home?”
“No.” She should say more. Apologize and make it better, but she didn’t know how.
They stared at each other for a minute, then he ducked his head and kissed her lightly. Chastely, and it felt all kinds of wrong.
“Come on, there’s another lookout a little further on that’s pretty cool.” He slid his hand to the middle of her back and steered them back onto the path.
The rest of the date was more of the same—PG-13 touches and warm smiles, but no more dangerously heated gazes, and his hands stayed safely away from all erogenous zones.
As they headed back to the city, Trick glanced at her a few times, his gaze hooded and unreadable. His hand found hers and he covered her fingers with his, a heavy, welcome pressure.
When he finally cleared his throat, the question that broke the silence surprised her. “How about Italian for dinner?”
“You want to go out for dinner?” It was a stupid question. He’d just asked her to do exactly that. But she’d run hot and cold, and even though he said he understood, she didn’t really get how he could.
“No,” he said with a quiet intensity that rippled through her. “I want to get takeout and eat naked in bed with you. But yeah, if that’s not on the table, I want to take you out to a restaurant. Then maybe go to the beach after and make out.”
“But what I said earlier…”
“Would time make a difference?” He said it so gently, so full of understanding that her eyes filled with tears, and she twisted to stare out the passenger-side window. “The thing is, pretty girl, I don’t need time. You’re the only person I see, the only person I want to hold.”
Damned if that didn’t just make her cry harder. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. But don’t shut us down before we have a chance to see what this is between us.”
She swiped her hand under her eyes furiously.
“Do you want to go home before dinner?” he asked quietly.
She shook her head.
“Can I take you back to my place? We can hang out and watch some TV.”
“Sure.”
It just took a few more minutes to get to his apartment complex. After parking, he came around to her side of the car, and as she stepped down to the ground, he said something under his breath and pulled her—gently—against his body.
It started as a hug, but it didn’t take long for Trick to slide his hands into her hair and tip her face back so he could kiss her.
“Sorry,” he whispered against her lips, and she shook her head. God, he had nothing to be sorry for. She’d ruined everything. He pressed his mouth hard to hers, making her whimper and he jerked away, but she looped her arms around his neck and pulled him back in.
After another frustrating, ache-inducing kiss, he rested his chin against the side of her head.
“I’m the one who needs to be sorry, Trick,” she said quietly.
He kissed her neck, then her chin, then slowly spun her around and pointed her toward the wide exterior staircase and fell into step beside her. “Do you want me to keep kissing you?”
She took a deep breath. Just the thought of kissing made her feel better. “Yes. But—”
He grinned. “No buts. Like kissing you is a hardship or something—it’s not. Consider me a willing sacrificial lamb, laying myself on the altar of your lips. We don’t need to do anything you don’t want.”
“I didn’t say I don’t want to, I just don’t think I can.”
“Okay.” He shook his head at her as they hit the landing on his floor.
She stopped abruptly, but he kept going. She had to lift her voice and hustle to catch up at the same time. “It’s not okay for you, though.”
She was crazy. Beautiful, sweet, and more kissable than any woman Trick had ever known, but on this point, he was starting to think she was bat-shit insane.
He laughed, as gently as possible, but he couldn’t help the reaction as she trundled toward him. He opened his apartment door and ushered her inside. Her skirt swished over her bare legs and she smelled like sunshine.
Crazy sunshine.
He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. “You think I need to have sex to survive?”
She pressed her lips together, then sighed, rolling her eyes. “Of course not. That would be ridiculous.”
“My point exactly.”
“But…” She trailed off.
“But what? Come on. Spit it out. Might as well put all our cards on the table.”
She started pacing, traveling the length of the room three times before stopping and staring out the window. “Is this the longest you’ve gone without sex?”
Easy answer. “No.”
She stopped and stared at him, her pretty brown eyes all too knowing. “The longest you’ve gone without sex while on American soil?”
Damn. “Yes.”
He held her gaze until she broke the connection. He was laying himself bare. She needed to get over this hang-up.
“Trick…” She shook her head. “I’m not the girl for you. Go find someone else.”
“You don’t want me to do that.”
She dropped her gaze to the floor, but not before he saw the flash of pain. No, she didn’t. But she still didn’t want to want him for herself, either.
“I don’t know what to say to make this better, but there has to be something.”
“You can’t make it better. You had sex with Lila. I can’t ever get that visual out of my head. I thought I was more mature, that it was no big deal. I was wrong.”
“I’ve had sex with a lot of women, Gaby.” She flinched, but he kept going. “And with full respect to your roommate, she just happened to be the last one. She wasn’t the most memorable, or the best. I don’t say that to disparage her, but to put what I did with her in some context for you.”
She pressed her lips together, maybe to keep from saying something she’d regret. Girls are crazy. He’d heard guys say that shit all the time, but he’d never experienced this overwhelming emotion aimed at him before. Now he got it, at least in part. She had a lot of feelings: desire, jealousy, frustration. Probably more girl feelings that he wouldn’t even be able to name. He couldn’t identify with that, but suddenly crazy felt like the wrong word. Complicated, sure. Messy, definitely. Crazy, complicated, messy…however he named it, it didn’t make him like her any less—hell, it was probably the first time that anyone had cared enough about him to be jealous.
But she already had more of him than anyone else ever had. He just needed to find a way to show her that.
Chapter Eight
The feelings inside Gaby couldn’t be named with words she recognized—they were too sharp and ugly. She didn’t like them. She wanted them to go away. But if she opened her mouth, they’d spill out in ways she couldn’t predict. And Trick just kept going, pushing and poking and making the feelings bigger. Meaner.
“The best was this girl in high school. Do you hate her, too?”
“I don’t hate Lila,” she snapped. “At all. I wish I could be more relaxed like you guys about this. I know I’m a prude, okay? I know that I’m jealous and that’s totally unfair because we don’t have a relationship. I get in my head that it’s just things people do with their bodies, but in my heart…those things are a big deal. I’ve only had sex with four guys, and I’ve thought that maybe I was in love with each of them.”
Dark thunder clouds gathered across Trick’s face. “First of all, we do have a relationship. We’ve had four amazing dates—”
“Three dates,” she whispered, unable to hold herself back from correcting him.
“You’re forgetting shawarma.”
“Oh.”
“And maybe last night wasn’t amazing, but I was tired and my arm hurt. I’m sorry about that.” He rubbed his chest.
<
br /> “Are you okay?” She took a tentative step in his direction but stopped when he pinned her with a glare.
“I’m fine. You’ve been in love with four people?”
“Well, I thought I might love them.”
“That’s hard to compete with.”
“It’s not a competition.” She took another slow step.
He sighed and closed his eyes. “It should be. I’m not a forever kind of guy.”
“Wait, so you…what? Tell me all that stuff about other women and then just change your mind? I’m not worth it?”
“Oh for fuck’s sake, Gaby!” Trick didn’t yell, exactly, but he wasn’t calm any longer. “You’re worth the fucking moon. But if you only have relationships with guys you can see yourself sharing a white picket fence with, then I can’t lead you on.”
“I don’t think you’re that guy, Trick!” She did yell, pretty much, but calm wasn’t really her forte at the best of times. She was grumpy and mercurial and hadn’t been trained by the US Navy to be cool under pressure. She was toast under pressure. “I was trying to work my way up to just having a fling with you, okay?”
“A fling.” He glowered at her and crossed his arms. How the hell was she supposed to understand that body language? It told her nothing.
“Like I said, I want to be more relaxed. But up in the hills today…it was too emotional.” She brought her fingers to her lips and held them there for a minute. “When you kiss me…I haven’t figured out how to disengage my heart from the experience yet.”
He moved closer, staring at her. “I don’t want you to.”
“But you’re not a picket fence kind of guy,” she whispered.
“Yeah.” A muscle twitched along his jaw. “We’ve got ourselves in a real pickle.”
“So….”
He exhaled. “So let’s get some dinner? This sounds like a problem for not right now.”
Not right now, no. But soon. She nodded and he pulled a takeout menu off the fridge, giving her the option of going out or staying in.
Was there even a question?
“What do you recommend from this place?” she asked, snatching the menu.
“They have a really nice butternut squash ravioli,” he said after a minute, smiling with amusement.
“Uh-huh. What about in the red meat category?”
“Their ragu with polenta is awesome.”
“Sold. Do you have red wine or should we pick some up on our way to grab the food?”
“We should pick some up.” He took the menu when she thrust it back at him, and eyed her warily as he dialed the number for the restaurant. “You okay?”
She shrugged. “Like you say…this is a problem for not right now.”
They walked the long way to the restaurant and then stopped to pick up wine and a cantaloupe at the grocery store on the way back. Trick let her carry the bag of food once he had the second bag to juggle, but when they got back and she sat down to take off her sandals—sturdy, but still heels—he dropped to his knees in front of her.
“Damn, I forgot you were wearing these things. I should have realized how much walking we’d do.”
“I stand on my feet all day long. It’s fine.” She sighed as he squeezed first one calf muscle, then the other, and then she smiled. “But thank you for the concern.”
He took her ankle in his hands—sort of. He really braced it on his cast, and worked at the strap with his left hand.
“I can probably do that just as easily,” she said half-heartedly, but he ignored her and she gave in. There was something quietly lovely about Trick taking off her shoes.
He ran his thumbs over the red impressions on her skin where the straps had left their mark, then stroked up her calf. His fingers awakened a million nerve endings on their slow path to the sensitive skin behind her knee, where he stopped.
“We should eat,” he said quietly, but his hand stayed on her leg.
She leaned forward and brushed her fingers through his hair.
“What I said earlier—” He cut himself off. “I’m a bit out of my depth here, Gaby.”
“Can I babble at you, then?” She smoothed her hand over his cheek as he gave her a go ahead nod. “This is weird for me, too. I think some of my freakout was about the intensity. You were hurt, and I needed to see you, then we talked every day, and had two back-to-back dates. It felt like…” It felt like falling in love, or that early stages of over-eager lust that you hope might be love. But she didn’t want to say that, because she was pretty sure she knew Trick wasn’t the man to fall in love with. “Like we were burning too bright.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
Damn. How come none of the marrying kind ever said anything like that? Not smooth or practiced, just honest.
“If that was too intense…” He pressed a kiss to her right knee. “Should we dial it back?”
“Pace ourselves?”
“Something like that.” He cleared his throat. “I’ve got a bit of experience with the…relaxed dating, I think you called it.”
She laughed. “I’m not sure it’s called dating.”
“I’m being polite.” He resumed stroking the skin behind her knee, and she squirmed. How did that feel so good? “No strings, no expectations. That what you want?”
She bit her lip. Right now, she wanted him to keep touching her and to stop talking, but yeah… “I don’t know about no strings. You already know I’m the jealous type.”
He made a suspiciously growl-like sound. “No other people, no matter how slow we go.”
“Okay.” Twisting a bit in her seat, she gave him more of her leg. “But no expectations…I like that part. We see each other when it’s convenient for both of us. Like once a week? And…maybe not too much talking in between.” That one pained her, because she’d liked talking and texting to him over the past week, but it ratcheted up the expectations in her heart like crazy.
His gaze was unreadable as he looked up at her. “That relaxed enough for you?”
“Is it what you want?”
He dropped his eyes, looking at her lap, and suddenly she had a very good idea of what he wanted.
“I want you however I can have you, Gaby.”
“I might still need time to wipe those images out of my head, of you and—”
“We won’t sleep together, then.” He cut her off, his voice firm. She read between the lines—he wanted to keep the conversation positive.
She nodded her agreement. “I like kissing. I’m not…opposed to fooling around.” She found his gaze and held it, heat pulsing between them. Not opposed at all, maybe. “I know I’m giving mixed messages. It’s just…”
“I think I understand.”
“And sex isn’t off the table. Just not now.”
He let out a strangled laugh. She joined him, because it was absurd, this conversation.
“I’m sorry.” He tickled that spot behind her knee, and she squealed. “Uncle!” She sighed. “I really am sorry. I told you, it’s not that I don’t want to. I just can’t, not yet.”
He squeezed her leg, then glided his hand down to her ankle before slowly dragging it back up to her knee again. A few more strokes like that, and she’d be game for anything, including sex, history be damned.
“I’m going to tell you something, and I hope it comes out right.” His voice had taken on a rougher-than-usual quality. It was unbelievably sexy, and her heart rate picked up. “There are some things that I haven’t done with many other people. One thing in particular, I can promise I didn’t do with your roommate or any other casual hookup.”
He pressed another kiss to her knee, and this time, he kept his head resting on her thigh.
“What…thing?” Her question came out breathlessly, and he grinned up at her. He liked this, the sexy, playful banter. Well, duh. Anything was better than overly emo girl-drama.
“Do you trust me?”
She nodded without hesitation.
This time, his kiss was to the
inside of her thigh.
“Oh. That thing.”
He chuckled as he nudged her legs apart with his chin. “Want me to stop? Because I’m hungry for you, Gaby. If you’re willing.”
A shudder tore through her body. “Don’t stop.”
He hummed appreciatively and slid his left hand lazily up her leg, under her skirt and around her hip. He tugged her forward until her ass balanced right on the end of the chair, then kissed his way up the same path, shoving her skirt to her waist as he made his way to her lace-covered, soaking wet pussy. Not a word she’d usually use about her sex, but the way he was looking at it, that was the only vocabulary that fit.
Her pulse pounded in her ears as he kissed her mound, then her thighs, breathing in deeply like he’d just discovered how turned on she was. She never wanted to forget the low grunt that tore out of his throat as he brought his head to the apex of her thighs.
She closed her eyes and tipped her head back, but at the first hot, open-mouthed kiss to her sex, she jerked her gaze back to where his head burrowed between her legs. Mother of all that was holy, nothing had ever felt as good as Trick’s tongue licking her through her panties. It was hot and wet and rough, even though he was going slowly. He used his tongue, wide and flat, to work the lace against her clit, and she couldn’t help but roll her hips, meeting his mouth with eager little pulses as he worked her faster than she thought possible to the edge of an orgasm.
And then he stopped.
“No,” she groaned.
“I’m just getting started, don’t worry.” He patted her hip, urging her up so he could slide her underwear out of the way.
This time, he took his sweet time, loving her with his mouth, sucking and kissing and tracing all the intimate terrain only a handful of people had ever seen—and none of them while she was perched on the edge of a kitchen chair.
She loved it.
Seriously, having Trick go down on her was better than a candy-coated Christmas. And when he slid one thick finger into her, then added another, stretching and stroking and filling her with a delicious ache, she promised herself that nothing—no drama, no jealousy, no insecurity—would get in the way of enjoying whatever this man had to offer her.
