by KB Winters
It was better than heaven. I laid back, closing my eyes, responding with small moans of appreciation as he worked his fingers through my scalp. He did it, of course, the same way he did everything, with a slow, steady, thorough attention that was so arousing. I had to grasp the porcelain tub and grit my teeth to keep from getting too excited. Meanwhile, his cock was still hard against the small of my back, and it took all my concentration not to sit up, take it in my hand, and slide down onto it.
“I didn’t realize you had such a way with hair,” I said as he rinsed it.
“Well. Hair isn’t foreign to me. I happen to have some of my own.” I felt his smile as he kissed my temple. “For now, at least.”
I smiled as he let the warm water rinse the rest of the suds from my hair, and when he was done, I leaned against his broad chest and he wrapped his hands around me under the suds, his hands fondling my breasts, thumbs drawing up each nipple to a diamond point. His hands occasionally trailed down to my stomach, and I knew I was only a couple months along and hadn’t begun to show, but Gabe was perceptive. He might notice something was different.
I slid his hands back up to my breasts, rested back against him, gazing thoughtfully at the tile wall. “I’m sorry if I was in a bad mood today.”
“Relax. We don’t need to talk about that,” he said, reaching over and smoothing the creases on my forehead. He ran his hand down the side of my face and kept it there at my cheek. I looked up at him as he bent down and kissed me on my nose.
I turned around on his wet body and kissed him on the mouth. The kiss deepened. His tongue explored my mouth, alternately hard and soft, his hands worked through my wet hair and down my shoulder blades. I rolled over on him fully, straddling him.
He looked at me, surprised and yet completely willing, pure desire in his eyes. He let out a breath as I lifted his cock and sank down onto him. A captured groan escaped him, and I felt him go weak under me. “This isn’t about sex, Meg, but I still love being inside you. There’s nowhere on this earth I’d rather be.”
We didn’t move. We just sat there, for the longest time, staring into each other’s eyes.
“God, baby,” he said as I put my forehead against his shoulder, letting him mold my body to his. “This is perfect.”
It was perfect. But I’d begun to shiver. I was mostly out of the warm water by now, and goosebumps had begun to appear on my arms. He noticed and lifted me up and off of him. “Why don’t we take this to the bed?”
I nodded.
He got out of the tub first, dried himself off, then threw a towel over his shoulder. He lifted me out of the water as though I were light as a cloud, then carried me into the bedroom and placed me down on the bed as carefully as he would a piece of delicate china. He began to move the soft, thick towel gently over my arms, my breasts, and down to my abdomen. Thoroughly, and with so much care I could almost feel his love for me in every movement. He lifted my legs, running the towel down my thighs, to my feet, being careful to dry every last drop of water from my skin. Then he leaned over me, twisting the excess moisture out from my hair. I watched him, feeling like it was less about drying me and more about worshipping me.
And God, I didn’t deserve it. But he made me feel like maybe, just maybe, one day I could.
Then he just stopped and started to watch me again.
I sat up on my elbows and bit my lip. “Is something wrong?”
He shook his head. “Nothing is ever wrong when I’m with you. I was just thinking about how beautiful you are.”
I smiled, blushing. I trusted this man with everything I had, but only wished he could do the same with me. “But –”
He silenced me with a kiss, his mouth hot and soft, and I let out a low moan that only deepened the need coiling inside me. He pulled me tighter to him, then rolled over onto the bed so that I was on top of him, straddling him, hair in wild, wet ropes falling down to my breasts. Rivulets of water snaked off the slope of my tits and landed on his hard, bare chest. His hands travelled down the small of my back, pausing at the S curve of my ass.
“Oh, God, I want you in me, Gabe,” I murmured as I took hold of his cock again.
He lifted my body up and ground it against his, sliding my wet pussy over his cock in a frictionless, tantalizing frenzy. Every time we slid together, my clit pulsated with a pleasure I never knew possible. Was it the pregnancy, making everything more sensitive? Or was it just that this was Gabe? And for the first time in my life I was trusting that someone would never hurt me?
His body shuddered under mine, and I knew he felt it too. We’d touched each other in such a deep place. If this ended, I knew neither of us would survive without serious war wounds. We’d gone too far now, to ever get out of this unscathed.
The only solution? To keep us going. As long as I could.
My fingertips lightly grazed his abdomen, making his muscles clench. My hand moved lower and wrapped slowly around his prick, hard as steel. I stroked him eagerly, as he covered my body with kisses and caresses, moving over every body part, making me whimper with need to have him inside me.
“Oh,” I moaned, as I hovered over him. My hands travelled the length of his biceps, up to his shoulders, then laced around his neck. He moved against me with his rock-hard cock, pressing it to my pelvis, and I spread my legs wide for him, urging him where he needed to be.
He slid inside me, so easily, so perfectly, letting out a deep grunt of pleasure. “It gets better and better, every time,” he whispered.
He’d said what I’d been thinking. We had a rhythm now, a routine, and though some people may have found that boring, it only seemed to get more exciting. Each rhythmic thrust was slow and deep, filling me completely. I matched his thrusts as he whispered words of love into my ear. This wasn’t just sex anymore. We’d gone beyond that. This was making love. And no wonder it all felt so new to me. I’d never done this before.
“Come for me now, baby,” he said to me, as he felt my climax nearing. “Come all over me, baby, as loud as you want. I love watching you come.”
When a deep wave of release enveloped me, I cried out his name, bracing my body tight against him and shuddering as he kept his eyes locked on mine. I was still riding the wave when I felt him follow, his body spasming as he found his own release, falling into me.
He peeled off me, still breathing hard, and whispered, as he kissed my forehead again, “I love you, Meg. God, how I love you.”
I curled up next to him. As I lay there, in the silence, I realized that every time he said he loved me, I felt more and more wrong. My deception was only growing deeper, with every moment I remained silent.
I made the decision, right then.
“Can I talk to you about something?”
He nodded and yawned. His voice was only a murmur. “Yeah. Yeah, of course. What is it?”
“It’s a long story,” I said. And things right then were absolutely perfect. This would ruin that perfect night. And for once, I just wanted to lie here, in peace, feeling loved. Even if it wasn’t going to last. I lifted my head and kissed his stubble-coated jaw. “It can wait until tomorrow.”
“You sure?” he said, his voice already heavy with sleep.
“Yep. Sure.”
I snuggled against him. No backing out tomorrow, I told myself. He said he loved me, and nothing would change that. I just had to trust that he meant it, and that his love for me could withstand the coming storm.
Chapter 17
Gabe
I walked into work the following day, feeling more or less bewildered.
After a rocky start, we’d had a phenomenal night. Sex with Meg had always been amazing from the first night, but last night it was less about the act. There was more feeling, more emotion, as if we’d both been pouring our whole selves into every kiss, every last touch.
So when I’d woken up at five in the morning to find her gone, I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t know whether I’d see her today, or not for another lifetime.
She’d confessed she had something to tell me. I could sense by the way she’d tensed up that it wasn’t something good. But I’d just experienced the deepest, most intimate connection I’d ever had with another person in my life. I’d wanted to enjoy that peace, feeling like I was one with the person I was meant to be with; we’d tackle life’s problems tomorrow.
And then she was gone. After all the stress and sleepless nights I’d gone through all week, with her near me, I’d fallen into a deep, dreamless sleep. She must’ve snuck out quietly and called herself a cab sometime in the night.
Without telling me what she’d wanted to say.
Shit. I’d begged to know all about her, and when she finally wanted to open up to me, I’d been a dumbass and fallen asleep.
I sent her five texts, each one with growing urgency, hoping she’d respond. Nothing. Here I was, the morning after the best night of my life, feeling scared to death.
She had to know it didn’t matter. Whatever she wanted to tell me, I would be okay with it. I’d been entranced by Meg in high school. But now, my feelings for her were so much deeper, all-encompassing. If this was the High School Brush-Off Two-Point-O, I knew I wouldn’t survive.
Without Meg to lull me back to bed, I was one of the first people at the office. I’d been working on my computer for two hours, getting nowhere as I tried to fix a bug that none of my programmers could figure out, when Heller walked in. “How goes it?” he asked.
All the frustration that had magically been wiped away when I held Meg in my arms had suddenly come back, full force. My shoulders felt tight. My head ached. My eyes were beginning to cross from looking at the computer screen for too long. Truthfully, Heller? Shitty. “Fine,” I mumbled. “Just got a lot of work to do, you know, for the launch.”
He walked in and stared at me. “I know that look,” he said. “That’s not inspiring confidence. Trouble with your girl?”
Of course, he knew it. We’d worked together long enough. I was the guy who barely made a wave, not even a ripple. I was calm, easy-going, and confident about one thing: My skills. Now, I felt about ready to stab something with a pencil. I rubbed my eyes. “No. The girl’s fantastic. Just a little tired.”
He smiled and said, “Well, get on up and take a break. Let’s go get coffee.”
I nodded and pushed away from my desk. I wanted to keep working, but I knew it wasn’t good to keep staring at a computer all day. And yeah, coffee could help me. Taking my phone with me should I receive a text from Meg, I followed him to the kitchenette and filled my mug with coffee, then sat down with him at the table.
“Looks like the marketing is coming along,” Heller said as he sat down, dumping packets of cream and sugar into his mug. “Dan has it all under control. The email blast campaign is particularly pervasive. We’ve purchased lists and we’re segmenting the audience by age to really hone our messaging. And the retargeting ads are some of the best work they’ve ever done.”
I nodded half-heartedly, pensively nursing my coffee. Because after all, what the hell good was a marketing campaign if the product was shitty? Or worse yet, if the product couldn’t roll out at all? Heller never cared about quality—he thought E-Ventures should roll out a bunch of inferior apps, instead of one stellar one, because it would increase our profit margin. I valued quality over quantity. But the bug I’d been trying to work through on LuvMakr was for the user-interface. If I couldn’t get the coding for that right, the whole thing, all my years of work, would be for nothing.
“You don’t seem excited,” Heller noted, as I opened up my phone to see if I’d missed a text from Meg. Maybe I’d missed the ding when I’d been pouring coffee. But only one minute and thirty-seven seconds had passed since I’d checked it before.
And of course, no text.
“I am. Looking forward to it,” I muttered.
He laughed. “You look like you’re going to a funeral.”
I closed my eyes, then opened them when an image of Meg, straddling me, impaled on my cock appeared. It hurt to imagine her and think that last night might’ve been our last night together.
No. That was wrong. Everything was fine. After I got done talking to Heller, I’d go outside and call her, just to calm my nerves. Then I’d work out the bug in this fucking code if I had to stay up for a week straight. I could do this. I would do this.
“I’m having a few issues with the code,” I said, confidence bolstered. “The user interface is buggy.”
“Oh?” he asked, surprised. Heller was not a coding man. He had no idea what went into it and didn’t really want to know. He always seemed perplexed when I tried to explain to him how going through lines of code wasn’t like reciting the ABCs. “You’ll fix it, right?”
“Yeah.” I had a few ideas I could try, but nothing I could simplify in layman’s terms to make him understand.
“It’s not going to effect the rollout date we promised the investors, is it?”
I shook my head. At least, I hope not. “No.”
“Good. Because you know,” he said with a jovial laugh. “They’re going to have our asses if we’re even one day behind schedule.”
Thanks, Heller. Way to make me feel relaxed. I opened up my phone and glanced at the screen again. No text. In fact, it looked like she hadn’t even read my messages. I only hoped that wherever she was, she was okay.
I took a sip of the coffee but even that failed to perk me up. Meanwhile, Heller chatted on about his life. He was going hiking up in Stokes with a girlfriend this weekend. He was single, had been married once about twenty years ago, but he was so much more involved in his job that they divorced after only a year or so. Since then, he’d made a good living with real estate investing, and he loved to flaunt his wealth. He had the fancy Mercedes, and supposedly, he had a massive mansion with fifteen bedrooms in Fort Lee that was just his, though I’d never been there.
I usually had to reel in his spending on investors, because he tended to go overboard, laying out thousands of dollars on meals and schmoozing. E-Ventures was his pet project, he used to say, because he didn’t need the money. But sometimes I got the feeling that his expensive tastes had caught up to him, and he was living entirely on credit. Why else wouldn’t he have invested a single penny in LuvMakr, since he believed in it so much?
“That sounds great,” I said listlessly to him, only half-hearing his plans.
“What are you planning to do this weekend?”
My plans for the weekend? At that moment, I wanted to find Meg, take her to my house, lock her in there, and never let her go.
Yeah, that really sounded sane.
“I’ll probably come in here,” I said, checking my phone again. Nothing. “Try to get some of this buttoned up. Got to keep the nose to the grindstone. It’s go-time.”
That was definitely the more likely scenario. But truthfully, if my weekend didn’t involve Meg in some capacity, I knew I’d go insane. I needed to see her again, to touch her, to hold her.
When I left Heller, I went back to my office, closed the door, and dialed her number.
It rang and rang. My heart thudded in my chest. Where could she be?
I left a voicemail, knowing it was useless, considering no one listened to voice mails anymore. Then I punched in another text to her. When I hit send, my eyes trailed to the coding on my computer.
Fuck, I still had to work on that.
Miserably, I stared out the window, onto the fountain and downtown Hackensack, sparkling in the summer sun. People milled about, enjoying the great weather, but my insides were all a dark, raging storm, getting ready to pour.
And then I heard a ding.
I looked down at my phone and rejoiced when I saw Meg’s name.
I opened up the text from her. I’m sorry. I’m ok.
What happened to you last night? I typed in anxiously, hanging on to this lifeline with every ounce of strength I could.
I’m sorry. I need to talk to you. I just need to get some things squared a
way first.
All right, I thought. She wanted to talk to me. She wasn’t disappearing again. Everything was fine. I typed in, Ok. When do you want to get together again?
I held my breath waiting for her text to appear. I don’t know. I’m sorry.
Tomorrow? Next week? Next month. I couldn’t stand the not knowing. But even more worrying was the thought of her leaving me forever. Don’t be sorry. Can I do anything to help you?
No. I have to do this on my own.
Was she blowing me off? I found that hard to believe, after the connection we’d had. She had to have felt it, too. I felt powerless. All I wanted was her in my arms. Nothing else. But she had things to square away. What things? I couldn’t even guess. I knew too little about her to even fathom. I scratched at my jaw, wondering what else I could do. Finally, I typed in: All right. Please text or call me if I can help you in any way.
There was no response.
After staring at the phone and willing a response for what felt like a lifetime, I typed in: I love you, Meg.
I knew she wouldn’t respond to that. I’d told her I loved her already, so many times, and yet she’d never said the same to me. And maybe she didn’t love me. But it was okay. I still knew I had to get that out into the air, because I had a feeling that whatever she was going through, she needed to hear it.
Chapter 18
Meg
Friday morning, I was in a frenzy, rushing around the bedroom that had been mine since my uncle’s so-called Good Samaritan rescue of me when I was a teenager. I tore clothes from hangers and emptied dresser drawers, stuffing clothes into the suitcase I’d used for college. Heller was at work, not due to come home for hours, so I had time. I took a shower, braided my wet hair, threw on a sundress, scuffed into my flip flops, and I was ready.
I’d chickened out the other night, when I was in bed with Gabe. I’d planned on telling him everything in the morning, but then, as he slept beside me, my mind started to spiral out of control with thoughts of the dream I’d had. Those scars opening up on him, scars that could never heal. I couldn’t bear it. So I called an Uber and left, late at night, hoping I could buy myself more time.
