Things We Never Got Over

by Lucy Score

  Naomi was a data kind of girl. If she wanted a peek at my medical record, I had no problem. Especially if it meant I got to move in her, feel her ride me until she came with nothing between us.

  “Okay,” she said again.

  It was better than winning the fucking lottery, that feeling that lit up my chest. The knowledge that she trusted me to take care of her.

  “You sure?” I pressed.

  Her eyes were open and locked on mine. “Knox, it feels too good. I don’t wanna play it safe. Not this time. I feel like being reckless and…whatever. Just move, please!”

  I’d make it the best she ever had.

  I slid my hands behind and under her, cupping the curves of her ass.

  Testing us both, I held her up, pulling out just an inch.

  We both groaned, and her forehead met mine. Moving inside her with nothing between us felt better than good. It felt right.

  When she quivered around me, I had enough fucking rhapsodizing. It was time to take.

  “You better hang on, baby,” I warned. My heart was already pounding like I’d raced up a half dozen flights of stairs.

  I waited until she gripped the back of my seat. “This is what’s gonna happen, Naomi. I’m gonna start moving, and you’re gonna come as fast and as hard as you can. Then I’m gonna take my time driving you up again, and when you go off that second time, I’ll be right there with you.”

  “Good plan. Very organized. Measurable goals,” she said, and then she was kissing the air right out of my lungs. I withdrew another inch or two and captured her moan with my mouth.

  “Hold on,” I reminded her, and then I was yanking her back down as I rammed my hips up.

  It took everything I had not to let go and drive into her again and again. “Jesus, Naomi,” I breathed as her pussy fluttered around my shaft.

  “I told you I’m close,” she said, sounding annoyed and embarrassed.

  “Everything you do makes me want more,” I growled. Before she could react to my stupid-ass confession, I buried my face in her other breast and started to move. Slowly, purposefully. Even though it cost me.

  On my third thrust, she came like a lightning strike, setting off the horn like a victory cry. As the rest of her body tensed, her walls rippled around my dick in the sweetest kind of torture. I almost went cross-eyed trying to keep my release in my balls where it churned.

  I’d never had a woman like her. Never felt anything like this before. And if I stopped long enough to think about it, I’d recognize that as a red flag. But in the moment, I didn’t fucking care. I could ignore it as long as Naomi Witt was riding my cock.

  “That’s my girl,” I groaned as she gripped and released me to a rhythm more beautiful than music.

  “Oh my God. Oh my God,” she chanted until her body finally went limp on top of me.

  I went still inside her and gathered her close. I could feel her heart pounding against my own. Then she poked me in the shoulder.

  “You promised me another one,” she said, the words muffled against my neck.

  “Baby, I’m trying to hang on here to deliver.”

  She lifted her head to peer at me through strands of chestnut and caramel. I brushed it back, tucking her hair behind her ears, the gesture feeling oddly intimate. And I wished I hadn’t done it. Because it felt like one more string knotting itself, tethering me to her.

  “So it feels this good to you too? I mean, you’re not just like ‘this is fine’?” To illustrate her point, she added a half-hearted thrust with her hips, and I couldn’t hold back the groan.

  “Hell, Naomi, there’s nothing ‘fine’ about what it feels like to have you come on my cock. Why the hell do you think I said I’d do this fake boyfriend crap?”

  She smirked. “Because you saw how disappointed my parents were in me and you wanted to help me out like the grumpy, small-town hero you are.”

  “Smartass. I did it because I woke up, and you weren’t next to me, and I wanted you there.”

  “You did?”

  “I wanted you there so I could flip you over on your hands and knees and fuck you so hard you wouldn’t be able to sit down for the next forty-eight hours without thinking about me.”

  She opened her mouth, and something between a moan and a whimper came out.

  “I’m not done with you yet, Daisy,” I said. Inwardly, I cringed at the harshness of this statement. Mid-sex me was not usually so fucking chatty. But Naomi was doubting what I’d made her feel. And that wouldn’t stand. Not even in the short-term.

  “Can I move again?” she asked.

  “Jesus. God. Yes.”

  And then she was riding me, working my cock like it was a stallion in need of breaking. Every slick slide, every little moan, every time a fingernail bit into my skin, I felt the rest of the world recede a bit more until it was just Naomi and me.

  Sweat beaded on our skin. Our breath mingled as we panted together.

  There was nothing like being fully seated inside her. Nothing like claiming her and being claimed.

  “Naomi.” I gritted out her name as I felt her start to flutter around me again. Tiny little pulses that drove me out of my fucking mind.

  “Knox. Yes. Please,” she whimpered.

  I took her nipple on a long, deep pull. It was too much for both of us. As the first wave of her orgasm took her, I lost control, pumping into her hot, tight channel as if my life depended on it.

  Maybe it did.

  Because when that first hot spurt wrenched its way free. When she screamed my name for the world to hear. When she closed around me and milked a second and a third burst from me, I felt born again. Alive. Hollowed out and refilled to overflowing with something I didn’t recognize. Something that scared the ever-living hell out of me.

  But I just kept on coming, and so did she, our releases endless.

  This. This was why once wasn’t enough. This was why now I wasn’t sure what was enough.

  TWENTY-NINE

  KNOX’S HOUSE

  Knox

  “Nice place,” Naomi observed as I locked my front door behind us and flipped on the lights.

  “Thanks. My grandfather built it,” I said on a yawn. It had been a long day followed by a long night at Honky Tonk and I needed sleep.

  “Really?” she asked, her gaze lifting to the loft above the living room, the timber ceiling and the antler chandelier that hung there.

  The cabin was small and leaned toward rustic. Two bedrooms, one bath. The floors were pine. The stone fireplace needed a good scrubbing but still did the job. The leather couch was finally broken in just the way I wanted it.

  It was home.

  “Are these your parents?” she asked, picking up a framed photo on one of the end tables. I didn’t know why I bothered keeping it. My parents were line dancing at a picnic in Liza J and Pop’s yard. Smiles on their faces, feet in sync. Happier times that, in the moment, seemed like they’d go on forever.

  It was, of course, a lie.

  Happier times always came to an end.

  “Listen, Daze. I’m beat.”

  Between my brother getting shot, the sudden onslaught of orgasms, and work, I needed a solid eight hours of sleep before I’d be worth anything.

  “Oh. Yeah. Sure,” she said, carefully putting the photo back on the table. Though I noticed she’d angled it toward the couch, not away from it like I’d done. “I’ll head home. Thanks for the backup today with Way’s teacher…and my parents. And then all the orgasms and stuff.”

  “Baby, you’re not going home. I’m just telling you why I’m not makin’ any moves when we go upstairs.”

  “I should just go home, Knox. I have to be up early to get Way at Liza’s.” She looked as exhausted as I felt.

  I hadn’t given it more than a passing thought in the past, but my girls at Honky Tonk dragged their asses home at two or three a.m. and on weekdays had to be up again by six or seven depending on the usefulness of their significant others.

  I rememb
ered a solid year stretch when Fi would fall asleep sitting up every day at her desk because her kids were shit sleepers. It got to the point where I had to do the thing I hated. I got involved.

  I’d unleashed Liza J on her and, in less than a week, my grandmother had both kids on a schedule sleeping ten hours a night.

  “You have off tomorrow, right?” I asked.

  She nodded, then yawned.

  “So we’ll get up in,” I glanced down at my watch, then swore, “three hours and go have breakfast at Liza J’s.”

  It was the gentlemanly thing to do. Which usually wasn’t a huge concern to me. But I felt the tiniest splinter of guilt thinking about staying in bed while Naomi dragged herself off to family fucking breakfast and then tried to keep Waylay from breaking the law for the rest of the day.

  Besides, I could just come home after breakfast and sleep until whenever the fuck I wanted.

  I liked the way her eyes went soft and dreamy for a second. Then practical, people-pleasing Naomi was back. “You don’t have to get up with me. You need sleep. I’ll go home tonight, and maybe we can…” Her gaze slid down my body, and her cheeks turned a delicate shade of pink. “Catch up some other time,” she finished.

  “Yeah. Nice try. Want some water?” I asked, towing her toward the kitchen.

  It was bigger than the cottage’s. But not by much. I could imagine some visitors would find it “charming” with its hickory cabinets, counter tops in a deep forest green, and a tiny island on wheels that I used to pile unopened mail on.

  “Water?” she repeated.

  “Yeah, baby. Do you want a drink of water before we go to bed?”

  “Knox, I’m confused. This is just sex. We both agreed. Unless my parents are around, and then it’s a relationship. But my parents aren’t here, and I’m so tired I don’t think even an orgasm could keep me awake. So what the hell are we doing?”

  I filled a glass from the sink and then took her by the hand and led the way toward the stairs. “If you leave, I have to walk your ass home in the dark, then walk my ass back here. Which puts me hittin’ the sack back by another fifteen minutes at least and, Daze, I’m really fucking tired.”

  “My stuff is at my house,” she said, biting her lip in hesitation.

  “What stuff do you need in the next three hours, Daisy?”

  “A toothbrush.”

  “Got an extra upstairs.”

  “My face wash and lotion.”

  “Got water and soap,” I said, tugging her up the stairs.

  “I still don’t—”

  I stopped and faced her. “Baby, I don’t want to think about it or wonder what it all means. I just want to put my head on a pillow and know that you’re safe and asleep. I promise you, we can nitpick this mess to death tomorrow. But right now, I just need to close my eyes and not think about shit.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Fine. But we’re definitely nitpicking this mess to death tomorrow and reconfirming the ground rules.”

  “Great. Can’t wait.” Before she could change her mind, I pulled her the rest of the way up the stairs and into my bedroom.

  “Wow,” she yawned, blinking at my bed.

  A man’s bed and his couch were the most important pieces of furniture in the house. I’d gone for a big-ass king-sized sleigh bed stained dark.

  It was unmade, as always. I never saw the point in making a bed if you were just going to have to unmake it to use it. It was a good thing Naomi was nearly dead on her feet, because if the rumpled sheets didn’t send her packing, the short stack of underwear and t-shirts next to my nightstand would have.

  I nudged her in the direction of the bathroom and riffled under the sink until I came up with a spare toothbrush still in its dusty, original package.

  “I take it you don’t have many overnight guests?” she asked, wiping the dust off the plastic.

  I shrugged. I’d never spent the night with a woman in this house. I was already crossing the invisible boundaries of our agreement by having her spend the night. There was no fucking way I was going to hash out what it meant with her.

  She was the one who was used to sharing a life, a sink, a bed with someone. She was the one coming out of a relationship.

  Great. Now I was tired and annoyed.

  We stood shoulder-to-shoulder, brushing our teeth. For some reason, the companionable routine reminded me of my childhood. Every evening when we were kids, Nash and I hung out on our parents’ bed, waiting for them to finish brushing their teeth so they could read us the next chapter in whatever book we were in the middle of.

  I shook off the memory and glanced at Naomi. She had a faraway look in her eyes. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Everyone’s talking about us,” she said, rinsing her toothbrush.

  “Who’s everyone?”

  “The entire town. Everyone is saying we’re dating.”

  “I doubt that. Most of them are just saying we’re fucking.”

  She flung a hand towel at me that I caught one-handed.

  “Fine. My parents and Waylay’s caseworker think we’re in a relationship, and the rest of town thinks we’re just having sex.”

  “So?”

  She looked exasperated. “So? It makes me look like a…well, like my sister. I’ve only known you three weeks. Don’t you care what people think about you? What they say about you?”

  “Why would I do that? They can whisper all they want behind my back. As long as none of them are dumb enough to say it to my face, I don’t give a shit what they say.”

  Naomi shook her head. “I wish I could be more like you.”

  “What? A selfish asshole?”

  “No. Whatever the opposite of a people-pleaser is.”

  “A people-displeaser?” I supplied.

  “You have no idea how exhausting it is worrying about everyone else all the time, feeling responsible for them, wanting them to be happy and like you.”

  She was right. I had no idea what it was like. “Then stop caring.”

  “Of course you would say that,” she said, sounding disgruntled. She took the hand towel, wiped down her toothbrush, and then the counter. “You make it sound so easy.”

  “It is that easy,” I argued. “Don’t like something? Stop doing it.”

  “The life philosophy of Knox Morgan, ladies and gentlemen,” she said with an eye-roll.

  “Bed,” I ordered. “It’s too late for philosophy.”

  She glanced down at her outfit. Her feet were bare, but she was still wearing that denim skirt and shirt from her shift.

  “I don’t have any pajamas.”

  “I take it that means you don’t sleep naked?” Just like making the bed, wearing pajamas was a waste in my opinion.

  She stared at me.

  “Of course you don’t sleep naked.”

  “There could be a fire in the middle of the night,” she insisted, crossing her arms.

  “I don’t have any turn-out gear for you to sleep in.”

  “Har har.”

  “Fine.” I left her in the bathroom and headed to my dresser, where I found a clean t-shirt. “Here,” I said, returning to her.

  She looked down at it, then up at me again. I liked the way she looked. Sleepy and a little less than perfect as if the shift and the late night had worn down her armor.

  “Thanks,” she said, staring at it and then me again until I got the hint.

  “You do realize I’ve already seen you naked, right?”

  “That’s different. Go away.”

  Shaking my head, I left the bathroom, closing the door behind me.

  Two minutes later, Naomi stood in the doorway in my t-shirt. She was tall, but the shirt still covered her to mid-thigh. Her face was scrubbed clean, and she’d pulled part of her hair up and back in a small knot on top of her head.

  The girl next door was about to crawl into my bed. I knew it was a mistake. But it was one I wanted to make. Just this once.

  We traded places, with Naomi slipping into m
y bedroom and me commandeering the bathroom to remove my contacts from my bleary eyes.

  Running on fumes, I snapped off the bathroom light and crossed to my side of the bed. She was on her back, arms tucked under her head, staring up at the ceiling. I killed the bedside light and stripped in the dark, throwing my clothes in the direction of the dirty laundry pile.

  I dragged back the blankets and finally fell into bed with a sigh. I waited a beat, staring up at the darkness. This didn’t have to mean anything. This didn’t have to be another string, another knot.

  “You good?” I asked.

  “My pillow smells weird,” she said, sounding disgruntled.

  “You’re sleeping on Waylon’s side.” I pulled the pillow out from under her head, then threw mine at her.

  “Hey!”

  “Better?”

  I heard her sniff the pillow. “Better,” she agreed.

  “Night, Naomi.”

  “Good night, Knox.”

  I woke to a thud, a yelp, and a curse.

  “Naomi?” I rasped, unglueing my eyelids. She came into a soft focus at the foot of the bed, where she was performing some kind of gymnastics to get her skirt back on.

  “Sorry,” she whispered. “I need to shower before I go to Liza’s for breakfast.

  “There’s a shower here,” I pointed out, rising on an elbow to watch her drag her shirt on inside out.

  “But I need fresh clothes and mascara. A hair dryer. Go back to sleep, Knox. There’s no need for us both to be walking zombies.”

  Blearily I glared at the time on my phone. 7:05 a.m. Four hours didn’t really count as spending the night with a woman, I decided.

  The appeal of being a bachelor was the fact that my days were dictated by me. I didn’t have to work around anyone else’s plans or not do what I wanted to do just so they could do what they wanted.

  But it seemed unfair even to me that Naomi should have to spend the day running on fumes while I slept in. Besides, breakfast did sound good.

  My feet hit the floor with a thump.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, trying to right her top. It was now right side out, but backwards.