by Amelia Wilde
It might be a cutesy coastal place with a cutesy name, but they have a room available, and that’s what matters.
We stand at the doorway to our room and Whitney squares her shoulders. “Are you sure you’re ready to take this step?”
I give her a look. “What step?”
“Sleeping together. On vacation.”
A frisson of nervousness runs up my spine, but I dismiss it. “Yes. But first, we need to get lunch.”
“You and your food.” She pushes the door to the room open. “Is that all you ever think—oh.”
The room is dominated by a huge four-poster bed, each of the posts carved from dark, polished wood. It’s piled high with throw pillows, but the massive frame looks sturdy enough to hold the two of us.
It looks sturdy enough to bend her over it.
We’ve been so close today that my body is aching with the need to be closer. Until this moment, I was ready to remain in total control, ready to insist that we have a chaste stroll downtown to a little cafe, but the heat in Whitney’s eyes has me thinking far filthier thoughts.
Her eyes find mine, dark like the posts of the bed, dark like my thoughts, and she steps close, her hands wrapping around my shirt like she’s trying to throw me off-balance.
“Wes. Do you see this bed?”
“I see it.”
“How hungry are you?”
I let my duffel bag fall to the floor and toss Whitney’s oversized purse on top of it. Then I lift her into my arms, her sundress spreading open as her legs go around my waist, and walk us both into the room. I kick the door shut behind me and it closes with a soft click.
“Let’s find out.”
Our clothes fly away like they were never meant to be worn, and Whitney crawls up onto the bed, her ass bobbing pleasantly in the air as she throws one pillow after the other to the floor. There are still more than enough left when I catch her wrist in my hand. A shiver runs through her at my touch that makes my cock harder than steel.
“You’re messing up the room.”
She bites her lip. “So what if I am? What are you going to do about it?”
I lean down and kiss her, using her momentary stillness to turn her onto her back and spread her wide over the comforter. “Stop you.”
“Oh, are you? I don’t see how you could. I am, after all, a grown woman and quite strong for someone—”
I cup my hand around her jaw, raising her chin a fraction of an inch. She arches her back, her nipples standing out against her breasts, and I feel it there, holding her in my hand like this—a need. A raw need. I can’t put it all together, not with my cock aching for her body and my mind drowning in her eyes, but I know, instinctively, that it must fit mine. God, please, let it fit mine.
“Be silent.” I say the words with all the authority I learned in the field, in the Army. I say it at the same volume I’d have said anything then, if we were pinned down, if a single shout of command would have blown our cover.
Whitney opens her mouth and closes it again.
“That’s a good girl.”
I wait for her to roll her eyes.
Instead, she spreads her legs another inch. I can’t tell if she means to do it or if it’s a reflex, but it doesn’t matter.
“What if I’m not good?”
To her credit, Whitney whispers, but I let my eyes linger on hers while I drag the pad of one finger down to her breasts, circling one nipple at a time, and then lower, over her navel, and lower. It’s painfully intimate—my body hums with it—and my skin prickles with the vast difference between fucking her last weekend and fucking her now. Last weekend was an act of desperation. This is an act of intention.
“You can’t help yourself, can you?” Her cheeks are rosy. “You want to be good, but you can’t allow it.” I dip two fingers between her legs and swirl them through the hot wetness there.
“I don’t know if I can or not.” Whitney’s eyes flicker away from mine, then back or not.
“Let’s find out.”
She wriggles beneath my hand, her hips swaying from side to side, and the color in her cheeks deepens. “You know, I might not be the best person to get so deep like this—”
“Deep?” I push two fingers inside and flutter the outside of her clit with my thumb. “We’ve only scratched the surface.” I bend to kiss her, to taste her, and she makes a little noise into my mouth that’s totally at odds with the bright, too-loud Whitney I know. When I pull away, she tries to follow, picking her head up off the floral-patterned comforter, but I push her back with a hand on her chest.
“Be good.”
That shiver—that trembling, running from shoulders to hips.
“Okay,” she whispers, then presses her lips closed.
I lean down so that my breath brushes the pink shell of her ear. “Put your hands above your head. On the post there.”
She does.
I take a deep breath and go exploring.
I run my hands over every inch of her—the soft skin at the undersides of her breasts, the flat of her stomach, the curves of her hips. I press her legs apart, wide, so she’s on display for me, and check that her hands are still on the post.
They are. “Good girl.”
She’s wet and pink and pliant in my hands, and I lower my face to the slick folds between her legs.
Jesus, she tastes good.
One stroke of my tongue after another and Whitney isn’t silent, but she’s trying her damndest, making little mmm mmm mmm noises in the back of her throat. Edging against the rules. It’s technically not speaking, though she freezes when I take my tongue away from her pussy. Her hands still grip the post of the bed, white-knuckled, her breathing fast.
“Good girl,” I say again, then return to the feast.
She starts to come apart at the seams when I pay special attention to her clit, sucking it into my mouth, swirling it with my tongue, and her hips lift from the bed, rocking against my face. There is no pain at the back of my neck, no pressure over my shoulders. I could stay here forever, if the need to fuck her didn’t grow stronger with every passing moment.
“Oh—”
Whitney tumbles over the edge into release, her hips bucking, and I slip three fingers into her wetness just to feel her muscles work. My cock pulses in answer. I don’t stop until she shudders and relaxes, panting.
There’s a moment when I have a sinking disappointment that somehow, I’ve fucked this up, somehow, she’s going to be satisfied with this moment. I push myself up to my knees and wipe at my mouth with the back of my hand.
Her eyes follow my movement, lock onto mine.
A glittering heat flashes through those dark eyes.
Then Whitney—slowly, deliberately—takes her hands off the post of the bed.
“Who said you could do that?” I move up to nip at her bottom lip, letting her taste herself lingering there.
“I broke the rules,” she says softly, breaking another in the process. “I did the wrong thing.” Her voice shakes, and my chest struggles to contain the feeling welling there. It’s so powerful I want to put a hand to my heart. Like standing underneath a cathedral bell while it rings. She’s asking me for something. No pretense. No performance. We are not pretending to be roommates, we’re not pretending to dip our toes into the shallow end of a relationship. She’s stripped bare in more ways than one, and like a lightning bolt, I know what she needs.
I put my hand on the side of her face and rub my hand across the blush of her cheek. “You did the wrong thing,” I echo, and I watch her eyelashes flutter closed for a hot second before she meets my eyes again, the skin beneath my thumb going scarlet. “But I forgive you.”
She sucks in a sharp breath and arches, her energy filling the room like radio static, like the rush of a waterfall, and I dig my fingers into her hips to hold her in place. “Fuck,” she says. “Fuck.” Then it’s a whirlwind of arms around my neck, of hips pressing against mine, a fevered pressure. Whitney is insatiable, uncontrollable,
and I let her turn me onto my back and straddle me, her pussy angled above my cock, so close I can feel her heat.
“How about this?” She plants her hands in the center of my chest and rocks her hips, teasing, tantalizing. “Is this good?”
I have my hands on her hips, so I feel every movement beneath my palms. I look her straight in the eye, straight into that vivid darkness. “So good.”
“No, it’s not.” Whitney grins, wicked and wild. “It’s torture, waiting.”
She doesn’t make me wait any longer.
We come together with such force that it squeezes the breath from her lungs. I pin those gorgeous hips down and rise up into her, lose myself in the curve of her neck as she throws her head back, in the half-moon pain of her nails digging into my chest. She rides me with complete abandon. She rides me with so much abandon that I have to rein her in, pull her to my chest, and kiss her, swallow her moans and cries with mine, so we don’t get kicked out of this too-cute bed and breakfast.
She urges me on with her hips, with her tight pulses around my length, and it’s so Whitney, so fucking timeless. I can see her anywhere, any time, running ahead, looking back to wave me on, always running, always choosing a different direction, zigzagging across space like some kind of electric butterfly, unpredictable and breathtaking all at once.
When she makes me come, I see the stars.
There’s a deep silence in the room for a moment, the blood rushing through my ears. It recedes slowly, and other sounds cut in—birds singing in a tree outside our window. Footsteps on the stairs in the hall. Whitney’s even breathing.
I roll over to see if she’s asleep and she sits up, a strange smile on her face.
“Christ. I thought you were sleeping.”
“Sleep?” She stretches her arms above her head. “How could anyone sleep after a thing like that?”
“People all around the world could sleep after that. Billions of them, even.” There’s a satisfied heaviness in all my limbs, but I push myself up on one elbow anyway. Whitney hops out of bed, arms still stretched into the air, and does a slow twirl.
“Not me.” She won’t look me in the eye.
“I can see that.” I let myself rest against the pillow, breathing in the scent of her on the blanket. She moves across the room in long strides to where our bags are piled on the floor, picks hers up, and digs through it.
“We didn’t lock the door.” She flips the lock and laughs. “That would have been so awkward for someone else to walk into.”
I don’t want to get up, but the energy has shifted, and while Whitney rifles through her purse, I follow her out of the bed. She flicks her eyes to me and blushes.
“Hey.”
“Yeah?”
Instead of asking the question, instead of saying the words out loud, I pluck her bag from her hands and fold her into my arms. I hold her tight. And then I tilt her face up toward mine and kiss her like I’m giving this a real, honest-to-God try. Because I am.
How could I not be? How could I see her like that, open to me in every way possible, and not try, even if the risk is a terrible one?
Whitney relaxes, the tension going out of her. When we come up for air, she puts her fingertips to her lips.
“Everything’s okay,” I tell her.
She nods. “Except one thing. Well, two things.”
“What are those things?” I stroke my hand lazily down her back and relish the feeling of her leaning into me.
“For one thing, we need a shower.”
“You look so wicked when you say that.”
“I didn’t say it only needed to be for cleanliness purposes.”
“Is that the second thing?” I shouldn’t want more of her, but I do. Blood rushes down from my head to my nether regions in an instant.
“No. Lunch is the second thing.” Whitney closes her eyes, as if in rapture. “Food. To put in our mouths, to savor, for food is the only—”
“Enough talk,” I tell her sternly. “Let’s go.”
She laughs all the way to the shower.
But I can’t leave it at that. I turn those laughs into moans, using only my fingers and mouth.
That’ll show her.
23
Whitney
“Are you free tonight?” Christy’s voice sounds breathless, like she’s walking fast down a sidewalk in the city. She probably is.
“Are you asking me out on a date?” I lean back in my chair at the insurance agency and pat at the elegant bun I’ve twisted my hair into this fine morning. “It’s not like you to make last-minute plans, but—”
“I’ve got an audition for you, Whit.” She steamrolls me with the excited confidence only an agent can pretend to have. “I know it’s last-minute, so if you turn it down, I’ll understand. But it’s also something out of the norm.”
“Like a Viagra commercial?” I’ve done auditions for tens of commercials—hundreds, even—and most of them involve wearing scrubs and smiling into the camera while holding a clipboard. “Slinky red dress?”
The guessing isn’t half-hearted out of defeat so much as an aching nostalgia. I miss last weekend with Wes like I miss some of the better Christmases of my childhood. I want to be back on that balcony with him, at that strange American castle. It wasn’t called a castle when it was originally built. I learned that much from the tour guide. It was only the man’s home.
“You still there?”
Christy didn’t hear my Viagra joke. I sit up straight in my chair. “I’m here. What kind of audition is it?”
She says something that’s muffled by a cacophony that highly resembles traffic.
“I didn’t catch that, Chris. What did you say?”
“It’s for the stage. Off-Broadway.”
I burst out laughing. “Are you shitting me?”
“I’m not kidding. It’s a cool role. You could be good for it. I convinced them you had the chops. Seven?”
“I’ll be there.”
“I’ll text you the address.”
“—you’ll be paired with Jason, who’s cast for the romantic lead. We’re still working out the understudies. I’m sure you know how that is.”
The director, Rowan, doesn’t look up from where she’s scribbling on a notepad.
Me? I’m center stage, in the middle of jumbled set pieces that seem to be standing in for someone’s vision of a living room. It’s hot under the lights, and they’re bright as hell. Jason sits on a stool made from two milk crates stacked together, flipping through the script.
“Do you mind if we switch places?”
Rowan looks up at me over her glasses. “Excuse me?”
“I’d like to switch places with Jason.”
His mouth quirks in a smile. I throw Rowan the most confident expression of my entire lifetime. Her eyebrows lift. Is she impressed or annoyed? It doesn’t matter, in the end. She’ll remember me.
My heart pounds, but I coolly look down at the script, like I’m just working out the final details. Like I’ve had it far longer than the fifteen minutes I’ve been staring at the pages, trying to make the words shuffle themselves into a discernible order. Christy met me outside the theater, shoved the packet into my hands, and left, still on the phone.
“Switch places with her, Jason.”
He stands up from his crate-stool and gives me a subtle nod on the way to my spot on the stage. There’s another reason for this, too—I want Rowan to see my good side. In these ridiculously bright lights, I’m going to need every advantage. She can’t spend the entire audition looking at the way my nose looks weird from that angle.
“Take it from the top. Page thirty,” calls Rowan.
I take a deep breath. The house lights are up, which reminds me of theater class back in high school. All those practices, and when those damn lights finally went down, you could find yourself in another world. No such luxury. Not this time. I have to find myself in another world right now, three feet away from Jason, in the middle of a Goodwill junkyar
d.
It’s not a walk in the park, either. This isn’t the giddy meet-cute at the beginning of the play, where our characters first meet. This is the heartbreak at the center of the show. I can feel it, even though I haven’t read the entire script.
“You good?” Jason gives me the grace of one final moment to collect myself.
“Let’s do it.”
His face transforms. That’s the only way I can think to describe it. One moment, his expression is neutral, positive even, and the next, it’s darkly seething. The set pieces around us fade out, becoming an apartment in my peripheral vision. I feel her—I feel the character I’m supposed to be playing settle in over my skin, feel her rage, feel the subtle way it shapes my face—jaw jutted, on the verge of angry tears.
“I’ve had enough,” growls Jason. “Do you ever think of anything but yourself?”
“Me?” I jab my fingers into my own chest, flicking my eyes down to be sure I’ve got the lines. “You have no idea what I’ve done for you. You have no idea—”
“Say that again.” He storms toward me, and I plant my feet. “Say it to my face.”
“I will say it to your face, because it’s true. Look at me. Look at me when I say it.”
He inches closer, and the chemistry between us crackles in the air. “How?” His hand comes up to the downstage side of my neck, a featherlight touch that will look like a grab from the first row. “Like this? Is this how you want it?”
“Yes.” I deliver the line with all the thunder I’ve ever stored in my chest, all the hope and hurt locked away for my days at the insurance agency. “That’s how I want it, damn you, that’s how I want it.” The script falls to the floor of the stage. My hands, I find, are wrapped around the front of his shirt.
He leans in, closer and closer, and then—
“Thank you so much, Whitney.” Rowan’s voice is a clear cut across the heat of the scene, and all at once, the weight of Jason’s fingers on my neck reads differently. Outside the scene, it’s all wrong for a man to be touching me there. Outside the scene, I want to run from the theater and straight into Wes’s arms.
