What Once Was Perfect

by Zoe York

  He shifted their bodies so he could move them as one. His hands on her hips, his knee between her legs. He thought about the exposed tops of her thighs spreading open and his erection pulsed, like he needed any reminding about where his cock wanted to be. But he wanted to savour the anticipation. Smell her hair and wonder what the shiny thing was under her top. Let her shimmy against him until she broke her own rule and begged him to move to the bed.

  A wet tongue at the base of his neck tested that resolve. Maybe their shirts could go. He tugged at Laney’s top first, giving her the silent instruction. While she pulled it over her head, he threw off his own henley and then reached for her hands, tugging them to his own waist before he palmed her hips again. He clenched his abs under her cool touch, and she responded with even lighter circles, tickling him until he lost whatever small bit of rhythm he’d pretended to have. He hoisted her up in his arms and tossed her onto the couch with a growl and she giggled. That lilting laugh undid him every time, and he fell to his knees beside the couch, curving over her pale, soft body to scatter kisses on her stomach.

  Her boots were next to capture his attention, and he easily lifted one leg, then the other, unzipping and tossing the footwear into a dark corner of the room. Her skirt hitched up, well above the tops of her stockings, and in the shadow of his body, black boy shorts were the only scrap of fabric left between him and nirvana. He grazed her skin with his palm, fingers settling comfortably into the space between the tops of her thighs. She arched into his touch, and he watched her face soften as she gave herself over to longing. They didn’t need words for him to know what she was asking.

  Their breathing slowed at the same time. She needed him just as much as he needed her. Her gaze locked onto his, and he exhaled again, louder this time. She squirmed under his fingers as he traced over her fabric covered center.

  She mewled, and with his other hand he pressed a finger to her lips. She smiled under his touch, and he couldn’t hold himself back. He climbed on top of her, his left hand between them, still teasing her core, and scorched her mouth with his. This was a kiss loaded with meaning.

  Need.

  Desire.

  Promise.

  Laney pressed her hands against the hard planes of his chest, then trailed lower. He held himself above her, braced on his forearm, and he started to shake as her fingers tickled the subtle ridges of his abdomen. She bit her lip and eased her palm against the flat of his belly behind his waistband. Her eyes widened as she realized he was commando, and he returned the raised eyebrow look. Touch me, he silently begged, but she pulled back to undo his jeans. Her knuckles rubbed against skin as she worked the button, and he jerked his hips toward her. The rasp of his zipper was sweet relief, and he couldn’t hold back a groan as she wrapped her hand around his shaft.

  He needed to touch bare skin.

  Dammit, he needed to taste bare skin.

  He rocked back and forth in her hand first, his palm resting flat on her sex, then pulled away. He sucked in a ragged breath. First step, get her to the bed.

  Kyle loomed large above her, bare chested, jeans unbuttoned and obscenely low on his hips. He looked lean and hard.

  Very hard.

  She sucked in a breath of her own and wriggled out of her skirt. He slid his arms around her and hoisted her over his shoulder as she yelped in surprise. He slapped her ass for making noise. She would have protested if that wasn’t against the rules. Her rules. And if being spanked didn’t make her slippery with want. She blushed at the realization.

  He crossed to the bed in a few long strides, and before he let her down, he stripped off her socks and underwear. Only then did he relax his grip around her waist, and she slid down his body. But he stopped her before she got to the good stuff. Instead, he held her hard against his chest, and his fingers got busy. One hand flicked her bra open, the other palmed her bare ass, teasing her slick wet heat with the lightest of strokes from behind. Her hips flexed, seeking firmer contact. He shuddered against her, and eased her back on the soft mattress. He shucked his jeans, then followed her down. She ached from wanting him, and his descent took far too long. Panting hard, she grasped his erection and lifted her hips to drive him home, but he shifted as well, evading what they both wanted.

  He shuddered again, and then she saw it. His control was shredded, and he didn’t want this to end. What had he asked for? More than a stolen moment.

  He wanted this to last all night. They didn’t need to rush.

  She stretched out, laying herself bare beneath him.

  This was so different than what they’d once had. She’d thought their summer together had been perfection. Discovering sex with Kyle had been magical, but she’d been naive. It hadn’t been perfect. At the first sign of stress, their fledgling relationship had crumbled. Coming together after all this time, finding passion again in the long buried ashes...different barely scratched the surface in describing it.

  As Kyle mouthed his way down her body, as he lifted her thighs to his shoulders and held her hips right where he wanted them, Laney realized this was more than they’d ever had. It wasn’t perfect. It was complicated and messy, but as his tongue stroked her, lifting her high and tossing her into a wave of pleasure, it hit her.

  This is real.

  Time stood still as he loved her with his mouth, then his hands, and finally his whole body, hip to hip, chest to chest, mouth to mouth. He held her gaze as he thrust into her again and again, sure and steady, as if to say, this could be our every night. This should be our forever. Matching tremors wracked through their bodies, as if his orgasm triggered hers and vice versa. As if they were one.

  Kyle pinned her against him as he rolled to his side. She almost cried out at the loss of his weight. She didn’t know what time it was, but it was certainly late.

  He stroked her back, his fingers running leisurely up and down her spine. They were both covered in sweat, and tingling trails lingered in the wake of his movement. Perspiration had never felt so wicked before. She shivered, and he indicated they should get up. He led her into the shower, where they quietly washed each other. It wasn’t that the heat between them had gone, exactly, but this wasn’t the overt sexuality of earlier. This was caring. Connection.

  Under the hot stream of water, they held each other, foaming bubbles sluicing off their bodies. Laney almost broke the silence a few times, but what was there to say?

  Chapter Fourteen

  The warm, heavy body draped around her was Laney’s first clue that she’d fallen asleep in Kyle’s bed. She blinked. It was still the middle of the night because she couldn’t see anything, although that could also be because her face was buried in Kyle’s shoulder. His left arm and leg were thrown over her body, his hands twisted in her hair. A bead of sweat rolled between her breasts. She tried to roll to her back, but her bedmate had her pinned between impressively defined biceps, even at rest, and his forearms looped behind her shoulders. She nudged him and he tugged her closer, his lips brushing her forehead.

  “Don’t go.”

  “I won’t. I just need—” some space “—to go to the bathroom.”

  He grunted and released her, his fingers trailing over her body as she slipped out of bed. She stood at the curtain, watching as he flopped over onto his stomach. His arms spanned the width of the bed, his feet hung off the end. He took her breath away, even in his sleep. It wasn’t just that he was rugged and handsome. He also oozed pheromones. She shook her head. No, it wasn’t simple chemistry. They were good together. Great. Best ever, by a mile. But not just because of attraction. The spark got them naked, but then the things they did together, the choices they freely made with one another, all of that was extraordinary. A level of intimacy that she’d shied away from for far too long, that she’d let become so foreign it should make her blush. She touched her cheek, acknowledging that standing in the dark, watching her lover sleep, she probably was blushing a bit.

  But she didn’t feel any reluctance or embarrassment, di
dn’t regret anything that they did. Because everything they did together felt right, and oh so good. With previous lovers, it was all about finding what worked and what didn’t, and she often established boundaries. Laney couldn’t think of anything that she wouldn’t want to do with Kyle. She waited for her face to flush at the naughty thoughts that were racing through her mind, but the only physical response was a tremor in her belly. She couldn’t give him forever, but she could give him an unforgettable right now.

  She padded first to the washroom, then to the kitchen. They never did get to dessert, and her stomach rumbled as she saw the white bakery box spotlighted on the island when she flicked on the lights. Her eyes flicked to the bedroom. Would he mind? She could see his raised eyebrow in her mind’s eye and laughed quietly. She deserved a midnight snack.

  She peeked inside and let out a quiet gasp at the glistening blueberry cheesecake. A delicate perfume of fruitiness made her mouth water, and she quickly sourced a plate, fork and serving knife. The fruit sat plump and shiny, scattered at random across a thin red-purple glaze poured over the top of the creamy white cake. Laney didn’t want to mar the perfection, but she was dying to know what that fresh scent tasted like in her mouth.

  “Can I join you?” She whirled around, the server gripped in her hand, and Kyle flashed a sleepy grin at her jumpiness. “Sorry to startle you. I got cold and lonely.”

  The unintended pout in his last words tugged at her gut. He didn’t seem to notice as he wrapped a warm arm around her waist and nuzzled his face into her neck. Then he took over, lifting a large wedge of cake onto the plate and gestured for her to follow him to the bed area, now bathed in the soft glow of his reading lamp. They climbed onto the mattress and sat facing each other, cross-legged, with the blanket covering their laps, the plate resting on Kyle’s knee between them. He offered her the first bite, and she closed her eyes as the tangy flavours rioted across her tongue. It was smooth and sweet, with a hint of citrus. Lemon? No, lime. Heavy enough to be decadent, but it melted in her mouth and she groaned for more.

  “Where on earth did you get this?” She plucked the last bit of ginger biscuit crust off the plate with nimble fingers. As Kyle pouted, she waved her hand to the kitchen. “Oh no! You want more, it’s out there. This bite is all mine.”

  “It’s amazing, eh? Carrie offers a limited number of take-home desserts every day. She’s a goddess.” Laney arched her eyebrow, and Kyle let out a gentle laugh. “She’s also my sister-in-law. She owns the coffee shop in town.”

  She let out a sigh of relief and the laughter grew. Dammit. “The redhead. Karen’s best friend.” He nodded, lips still twitching in mirth. “Right. I met her when I was in town on Christmas Eve, she seems lovely.”

  Kyle set the plate aside and tugged her toward him for a soft kiss. “You’re lovely.”

  “I can’t bake like this. Or at all.”

  “You don’t need to, that’s why we have Carrie in our lives.”

  He meant his family, but the inadvertent reference to the two of them as a single unit still did something funny in her chest. “It’s a bit far for me to drive just for cheesecake.”

  “There’s more for you here than just dessert.” This time the suggestion was clear and deliberate, and that funny feeling crystalized into bittersweet pain. Kyle flicked off the light and tugged her into the crook of his arm. “I don’t want to freak you out, or push you, at all. I like you, a lot, and I don’t see why this—” he waved his hand over their bodies “—needs to be a one-time thing.”

  Laney swallowed hard around the lump in her throat, and she willed herself not to cry. If she cried, she would run away, and much to her surprise, she didn’t want to do that this time. She wanted to tough out this conversation and get to the other side. “Oh, Kyle,” she said with a heavy breath. “I don’t see how it can be anything but. My life is in Chicago, and that’s not going to change.”

  “You don’t see yourself ever moving back home?” Kyle asked the big question without judgment or expectation, and a tiny fissure split the surface of her heart. Every step of her career had taken her further from Wardham, from Kyle, and now she was realizing too late that she didn’t leave an emergency hatch in the master plan. Even if they explored a long-distance relationship, her life had no room for compromise. No room for her to be the true partner that Kyle deserved. She couldn’t lead him on. She took a deep breath, and swallowed past the growing knot.

  “It would be impossible.” She shook her head. “I can practice plastic surgery anywhere, but I work with a cleft palate reconstruction team at the children’s hospital…”

  “And there’s nothing like that here.” To her surprise, Kyle nodded. “You feel really strongly about making a difference for those children.”

  “How did you...” Laney pulled her head up and stared at Kyle.

  He shrugged. “Twitter.”

  She sank into his chest. His heartbeat was slow and steady. Why was he not more shaken by the conversation? Another fissure slithered into existence and she blinked hard. His hand stroked up and down her back, calm and sure, and nothing made sense. “Kyle...”

  “Shhh. It’s okay.”

  It wasn’t, and she didn’t know how to fix it. “I wish we had more time.”

  “I’ll come and visit you. March Break maybe, or the summer.”

  Yes, please. She selfishly wanted to block off all long weekends and holidays in both of their calendars. Shame flooded her gut at the half-life she could offer him. “Is that a good idea?”

  “Is it a bad idea?”

  “There’s no happy ending for us.” Her voice cracked. “Probably easier to deal with that now and figure out a way to stay friends.”

  Kyle didn’t say anything, but he kept stroking her back as if she hadn’t just tried to break up with him. The silence stretched, and she realized he wasn’t going to respond.

  “Kyle?”

  “Laney?” She swore she could hear a smile in his voice, and she twisted around to see his face. He gazed back at her with a curious look. “Do we need to have this conversation right now?”

  She didn’t know when would ever be a good time. Never. Stop trying to break up with him. Move back to Wardham and have all of his babies. This time the fissure wasn’t so small, and as her heart split in two, she felt the first tear slip down the side of her nose.

  “No, no, no. Goddamn it, why are you crying?” Kyle rolled her underneath him, holding himself up above her body with his forearms. He nuzzled her nose with his, grabbing her gaze.

  “I can’t give you what you want.”

  “I want you.”

  “You want your own family photo to add to the collection on the fridge.” She sniffed, her breath hitching in her chest. “You want kids.”

  He thought he was prepared for any objection, but he hadn’t planned on that one. “You don’t want a family?”

  Fat tears rolled down her cheeks as she shook her head in misery.

  A lot of different words crowded to the tip of his tongue, but none sounded just right. This was too important to guess at, so Kyle just tipped his head, touching his forehead to Laney’s. He hoped she could see how much he loved her in his eyes. He wanted to tell her, but not in response to tears or drama.

  Her breath was still hitching in her chest as she tried to stifle little sobs, and he smoothed over her hair and down her cheek. “Shhhh. Sweetheart, it’s okay.”

  “Stop say..saying that.” She turned her head to the side, pressing her face into the pillow.

  Kyle rolled off her with a sigh. Nothing she could say would sway how he felt, or what he was going to do, but he didn’t want to steamroll her either. He traced lazy patterns on her back until her breathing returned to normal, trying to show her in actions what she didn’t want to hear.

  He wouldn’t trade Laney for an alternate life with children and another woman as his wife. There was no doubt in his mind about that. If she didn’t want children, then they wouldn’t have any. But she was
wrong about not wanting a family. Kyle was going to be there, steady and quiet and constant, until she realized that they were a unit.

  It wasn’t going to happen overnight. He wouldn’t walk away from his job, so he had told her the truth. The next step was him visiting Chicago on the next school break. And maybe setting up some appointments with elementary school principals while he was there. He turned the plan over in his mind, pleased with himself. He opened his mouth to tell Laney in no uncertain terms that she was everything he could ever want, but the words died in his throat when her phone rang.

  She leapt out of bed with a curse. Who would be calling her in the middle of the night? Kyle followed her into the main room. She glanced at the display and swore again. Kyle’s heart sank as she answered.

  “Rick? What are you...Oh. My god, are you okay?...No, I’m still in Wardham. I told you I probably wouldn’t be home until the 30th...” She threw an apologetic look in Kyle’s direction and wandered into the kitchen.

  He didn’t bother to follow. He didn’t want to hear half of her conversation with some guy named Rick, who was familiar enough to call her in the middle of the night when he had a problem. He didn’t want to draw any unfair conclusions about this asshole who got hear her say the word “home” and mean the city that they both lived in. They hadn’t talked explicitly about being exclusive, though, and Kyle sank to the couch. He shook his head. He wasn’t going there. Liar, you’ve already gone there.

  “...I’m almost six hours away, and I haven’t slept much tonight...That’s none of your business. I can take your shift tomorrow, though. I’ll head back later today.”

  Laney ended the call and came over to join Kyle on the couch. She laid her hand on his arm. “I have to...”