Stars danced in front of my eyes. “Yes,” I rasped, my jaw clenched.
He traced my ear with his tongue before biting my earlobe, his cock pressing against my hip. “What am I going to do with you?”
“Fuck me,” I whispered.
His grip in my hair tightened, making me wince. “Oh yes, your prize.”
“Do it,” I hissed. Enough playing around.
He let go of my hair and slid his hand up the back of one thigh. “Spread your legs.”
I widened my knees, and his hand slipped between my thighs, two fingers gliding easily inside me. I was so wet already it was nearly embarrassing, but his next words put me at ease.
“I love how wet you are for me,” he whispered, pushing his fingers deeper. “I can’t wait to get inside you one minute more.” He got to his knees and flipped me onto my back again, this time lengthwise on the bed.
Leaning over to the side, he took a condom from the nightstand drawer and tore open the wrapper. I watched as he slid it on, mesmerized by the sight of him and practically trembling that this was about to happen.
Oh God, he’s so gorgeous—look at that body, that face, that cock! You know, it seems really unfair that he got the looks and the big dick. If I was a guy, I’d hate him. He’s way too gorgeous to be real. Any minute now he’s going to sparkle like a vampire or shapeshift into a bear.
But a few seconds later he was stretching out over me, positioning himself between my legs.
Yes, I thought, sliding my hands down his back and over his perfect ass. Give me what I want. Give it to me deep and hard and fast. Let me feel the way you want me—every thick, hot, hard inch of you. Let me see you lose control for me. Let me hear you.
But he hesitated, barely inside me.
I wiggled impatiently. “Come on. Do it.”
“Not so fast, sweet pea. There’s something I want too, remember?”
Oh my God, was he fucking serious?
“Yes, yes, anything.” I slapped at his butt. Giddy-up, horsey. Let’s do this.
“Anything? Wow, you must really want this.” He pulled out and teased my clit with the tip of his cock. “It is going to feel good, I promise you.”
“Please, Quinn,” I whimpered. “I need it. I’ve wanted this for so long.”
“Me too, believe me.” He gave me an inch. “But I want more than this from you.”
“OK, yes,” I said impatiently. “I’ll go on a stupid date with you. Give me more.”
I got another inch.
“Not just one date. You have to give me a fair chance.”
“I will, I swear,” I panted. “I’ll even introduce you to my friends.” What? Why the fuck did I say that?
Um, because you need to get laid. Just agree to whatever, you can worry about the details later.
“I’d love that.” He slid deeper. “And how about being my date for Alex’s wedding?”
Oh God, really? The wedding?
“Yes!” I cried out as finally gave me what I wanted, pushing so far I felt that sharp twinge deep within, the harbinger of a seriously fucking good orgasm.
Deliriously happy, I held him to me, delighted with the ragged breaths that escaped him as he moved, ecstatic that the fit was such perfection, and goddamn jubilant over the fact that not only did Quinn have a huge, hard cock but he knew what to do with it. I’d been with one or two guys in the past who had a nice big drill but no clue how to use it once it was plugged in.
Quinn was fucking magnificent.
Maybe it was because he worked out so much and had such a strong core, but he moved in ways I’d never experienced. His body undulated over mine in rippling waves, and he rocked into me with a tight, steady rhythm that had me spiraling toward my climax in record time, even for me. I moved beneath him, matching his strokes, our bodies becoming slick with sweat. My hands were everywhere—his back, his shoulders, his ass, his abs. I gasped and clawed and panted, racing toward the finish, and the more frantically I moved, the harder he fucked me.
“Yes,” I rasped in his ear. “I love it hard like that. You’re so fucking good, Quinn. Your cock feels so fucking good.”
“Christ,” he growled. “You’re gonna make me come right now if you keep talking like that.”
“Now!” I demanded, the tension in me coiled too tight to last any longer. “Fuck yes, do it!”
He cursed and drove into me even deeper, and everything inside me burst wide open. I held him tight to me as his body went plank stiff, color and light exploding behind my closed eyes as my pussy pulsed around his throbbing cock.
And didn’t stop, didn’t stop, didn’t stop.
Every time I thought it was fading, I’d feel him twitch inside me once more, and my body would shudder with aftershocks.
“Jesus,” he finally said.
My face was buried under his chest, my hands stuck to his ass. I peeled them off. “I think my handprints might be permanently seared on your butt.”
“Well then, we’d be even.”
I giggled.
“What’s funny?”
“You. Spanking me like that.”
“I can’t be the first guy to do it. You’re terribly naughty.”
“You are the first, actually.”
He propped himself up on his hands and looked down at me. How the fuck was his hair still perfect? “Really?”
“Really.” My heartbeat, which had been in the process of slowing down, suddenly began to gallop again when I looked up at his face.
To be honest, I wasn’t entirely comfortable with it.
“Let me up. I can’t breathe,” I said, wriggling beneath him.
“Sorry.” He pulled out carefully and stood up. “I’ll be right back.”
While he was in the bathroom, I rolled off the bed, scooped up my clothes from the floor, and headed to the other bathroom. After cleaning up a little, I got dressed and congratulated myself on a job well done. The snooping mission had been a bit of a debacle, but since the big picture goal had always been to get him in bed, this felt like a victory to me.
A sweet, sticky victory.
Smiling, I went back into the bedroom, where Quinn was pulling his shirt over his head. At the sight of his bare stomach and chest, my stomach did this little fliparoo thing that annoyed me. I need to get the hell out of here.
Except wait…hadn’t I promised him some sort of date or something? He hadn’t meant tonight, had he? Crap. I didn’t want to go anywhere with him tonight. Besides, the weather was awful.
“Look at all that snow,” I said purposefully. Quinn had opened the blinds and although it was five o’clock and getting dark, I could see it coming down like mad. I walked over to the window and looked out over white-blanketed rooftops. “It’s like a blizzard!”
“It is.” Quinn came up behind me and nudged me in the back. “You better stay here tonight. The roads will be bad.”
I smirked at him over my shoulder. “I live upstairs, remember?”
“Oh yeah.”
I faced him. “Plus I don’t do sleepovers. It’s a rule.”
His eyebrows went up. “There are rules?”
“Yes. But I agree the roads will be bad. Was your class canceled tonight or something?”
He grinned. “You know my schedule?”
“No.” My cheeks started to tingle, which meant they were getting red. “Not your whole schedule.” I moved around him, heading for the door. “I’m just very observant, and I’ve noticed when you come and go. I assumed it was a class.”
He followed me out of his room. “Aha. Well, anyway, yes, it was canceled, so I’m in for the night. What about you? Did you take the day off?”
“Yes.”
“And did you have any plans besides observing me in my natural habitat from your hidey hole in my closet?”
We’d reached the living room, and I whirled around to face him, hands on my hips. “For the last time, I wasn’t spying!”
“OK, OK.” He held up his hands in surrender. “Relax. I forgot�
“Exactly.”
“So has your curiosity been satisfied, or would you like to know if I’m a good cook? I was thinking of making a pizza. Want to stay for dinner?”
I’d been planning on going up to my apartment—I wasn’t one to linger after sex, unless a repeat performance was on the immediate horizon—but pizza sounded pretty good. Quickly I weighed my love for good pizza against my dislike for post-sex chatter. At that moment, my stomach growled, making the decision slightly easier. “OK. I’ll stay for pizza.” For pizza, not for you, get it?
He smiled. “Good. We can talk about our dates.”
“Dates? As in plural? I thought it was just one.”
“Well, there’s the one first date. And then you said I could meet your friends, and then there’s the wedding. So that’s…” He counted on his fingers. “That’s like three dates.”
My eyelid twitched. “Do you have any wine?”
“No.”
I moved for the door. “I’ll be right back.”
Nine
QUINN
While Jaime ran upstairs for a bottle of wine, I opened my laptop, put on some music, and started taking out the ingredients to make pizza. When I was working a lot, I never ate things like pizza¸ but it was something I really enjoyed making and eating now that I didn’t have to be so strict about my diet. I even had a pizza peel and stone so I could do it right, and I’d grabbed my kitchen boxes out of storage last week so I could cook for myself again. Hotel living was horrible that way.
I pulled out yeast, flour, sugar, sea salt, and olive oil, setting them on the counter. Next, I found a mixing bowl and liquid measuring cup in a cupboard and ran the tap to warm up the water.
I couldn’t stop smiling.
When was the last time I’d felt this happy? Before my mom died? I couldn’t even remember. In general, I was an upbeat person who managed to find silver linings and didn’t tend to fret over things I couldn’t change, but it had been a while since I’d felt this good. Was it because I hadn’t had sex in months and had broken a rare dry spell? Or was it her?
I thought about it as I whisked together the dry ingredients, then added the water and olive oil. I’d figured sex would be good with her—not only was she smoking hot and temperamental, but we’d wanted it for so long—what I hadn’t counted on was how much fun it would be. How much I’d enjoy the challenge of her. How much I was hoping she’d want to do it again later tonight (and for fuck’s sake, let me take some time with it…there were all sorts of ways I wanted to please her), and then again in the morning before she left for work.
Of course, that was before I knew about her No Sleepover rule. I’d have to work on that, but not tonight. She’d only turn me down, and I’d learned it was better to let her come looking for things.
Shaking my head, I laughed out loud thinking about the way I’d discovered her in the closet. It was so ridiculous. No complaints about where it went after that, though.
Jaime appeared in the kitchen doorway a few minutes later, a bottle of wine in her hands and an amused expression on her face. “From the sounds coming through the floor up there, I thought maybe the ghost of Prince was down here cooking me dinner.”
“Alas. It’s only me.” I wiped my hands, crossed myself, and glanced skyward before turning the volume down. “Rest in peace, brother.”
She opened a drawer and looked in. “Oh good, you do have a corkscrew,” she said, pulling it out. “I couldn’t remember if there was one here.”
“How come so much stuff was left when the former tenant moved out?” I grabbed the biggest bowl I had and greased it with olive oil.
“She found a job in London, where her boyfriend was, and moved in with him, poor girl. She didn’t want to take all this stuff since she knew she wouldn’t need it, so we said it was OK to leave things.” She uncorked the bottle and poured red wine into two glasses. “Once she was gone, I came in and cleaned and organized everything. I’m glad it worked out for you.”
“Me too.” I put the dough in the bowl and covered it with a towel. “I only had to take a few boxes from storage. God, I missed having a kitchen.”
“So you’re a good cook, huh?” she asked, handing me a glass.
I shrugged. “I’m OK. My mom taught me a few things growing up, and while she lived with me in L.A. we’d cook together when she felt up to it. Not that she ate much.”
“Your mom was a great cook.”
“She was.” I took a drink. “Want to go sit down? We need to let the dough rise for a while.”
“OK.” She followed me into the living room, where we settled next to each other on the couch. The curtains were open, and we both stared out at the snow for a moment.
“My mom actually liked winter,” I said. “It’s one of the reasons she never wanted to move away from here.”
“You must miss her.”
“Every day,” I said. “I feel like I didn’t get enough time with her, you know? It’s like, when you’re young, you can’t wait to get away from home, and it’s only later that you appreciate what your mom—or dad, or whoever raised you—did for you. Only later that you realize you should have listened closer, that you weren’t done learning from them, that you still have questions about life.”
She nodded, looking over at me. “What would you ask her now if you could?”
“More about her life—her childhood growing up in Hamtramck, what it was like being the daughter of immigrants, why she waited so long to get married and start a family. She was over forty when she had me, which I didn’t ever think about before, probably because anything over twenty-five seemed fucking ancient anyway, but now I wonder about it. And when my father left her alone with a baby, what was that like for her?” I took another drink before going on. I’d never said these things out loud before, but it felt good, actually. “Was she angry? Hurt? Did she miss him? She never talked about him, and I had zero memories of him, of course, so it wasn’t as if I missed him and asked questions. But what was he like? What made her fall in love with him?”
“I bet he was handsome.” She said it nicely, possibly the only reference she’d ever made to my looks without making fun. “He must have been.”
“Maybe. Guess we’ll never know, since there are no pictures.”
“Really? Are you sure about that?”
I shrugged. “None that I ever saw. I haven’t gone through every single box in the attic, so I guess it’s possible, but there wasn’t anything in her bedroom or any other areas of the house. I don’t think she was sentimental about him.”
“Still. He was her husband and the father of her child. Hard to imagine not keeping any evidence of his existence, even if it was just for your sake.” She put a hand on her chest. “I mean, I’m the least sentimental person I know, and I think I’d secret away something.”
“Maybe I’ll look around up there,” I said, although I wasn’t entirely sure I needed to see a picture of the man who’d abandoned my mother when there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t give to have her back. “I have to get all our stuff out of that house anyway. I’ve been putting it off, to be honest.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because there’s so much up there, and the vast majority of it is useless old shit that should be thrown away, and it’s hard to make myself do it.”
“Want some help?” she offered. “Like I said, I’m not sentimental at all. I’ll be ruthless. It could be one of our dates!”
I smiled at her. “That will not be one of our dates, but thanks for the offer. I might wait until my condo is ready, anyway. That way I’d have a place to keep things if I wanted them.”
“Alex said it will be ready in about a month?”
“Looking to get rid of me?” I gave her the side eye.
“Definitely.”
“Well, I talked to the guy yesterday, and he told me three more weeks at least. Apparently there was something wrong with the electrical.”
��Where is it?” she asked, tucking her legs underneath her.
I told her about the condo I’d chosen in a renovated skyscraper, its downtown location, and the awesome view I’d have of Comerica Park. “Although I’d rather watch from inside the park. I can’t wait to go to a game.”
“I noticed you wear a Tiger hat in a lot of your Instagram pics,” she said, pouring herself more wine.
“Wow, you’re really into me on Instagram, aren’t you?” After elbowing her gently, I took the bottle from her and poured myself more too.
She elbowed me back. “Be nice. Or no dates.”
“Oh, no. We already sealed the deal on those. You are stuck with me on several future occasions.” I set the bottle down. “So do you want to tell me about these rules?” I made little air quotes around the word rules, so she’d know what I thought of them.
She sat up straight, ignoring my sarcasm. “No sleepovers. No excessive cuddling. No getting mad if I don’t call or text back some days, no leaving things at my apartment, and no talking about feelings,” she finished, rolling her eyes.
I nodded slowly, like I was taking it all in. “OK, define excessive. Like, if I do this…” I took her wine glass and set it on the table before grabbing her in a huge bear hug, leaning over, and smothering her face with my chest. “Is this excessive?”
“Stop it!” She tried to get out of my arms, but I was much bigger and stronger. “I can’t even breathe!”
“So this is excessive? That’s what you’re saying?” I released her. “OK, good to know.”
“God, you’re such an asshole.” She moved away from me on the couch and smoothed her hair.
“Just want to be clear.” I picked up my wine glass. “That one seemed a little vague. The rest I think I’ve got—you want to sleep alone, you don’t want to talk all the time, and you especially don’t want to talk about feelings.”
“Right.”
“So those are all the things we can’t do. What’s on the yes list?”
She looked at me like I was crazy. “Sex. With a condom. For a limited time.”
I nodded. “Got it. Sex with a condom but without feelings for a limited time. And what do you have against feelings exactly?”
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