Kiss Me Now

by Wylder, Penny

  It feels like the moment lasts forever, the whole day stretching out before us, and beyond that, the weeks, the months. We have all the time in the world, I think in that moment.

  What a fool I was.

  10

  Cassidy

  I stand outside the therapist’s office, pacing back and forth, trying to build up my courage. I didn’t tell Lark I was coming here today, or any of my friends. Hell, I barely even admitted to myself what I was planning to do, until I showed up in the parking lot this morning with the appointment penciled into my planner.

  Lark and I have been going out for a couple of weeks now. We haven’t given it a label or anything. I don’t want to rush this. I want to savor every minute. But ever since that day at the beach, we’ve spent nearly every night together, either at my apartment or more often at his—his bed is just bigger. It’s more practical.

  But more than once, I catch my old self peering through. It doesn’t matter how many times Lark tells me he cares about me, or how often he says he’s never met a woman like me. That voice in the back of my head, the one that was already prevalent since long before I met Norman, but which only got worse over the duration of our relationship, returns to hiss in my ear.

  He doesn’t really love you. He can’t. There’s no way a man like him will ever be interested in a girl like you for long.

  It’s all bullshit. I know it’s bullshit. But at my weakest moments, alone in my apartment after Lark leaves in the mornings, or when I’m out on a run near his apartment and eying all the other perfect mothers dressed in designer clothing with their tight, fit, skinny bodies, I can’t help but hear that voice again.

  So, I finally decided to do something about it. Or at least, ask someone what I can do. I don’t really know how all this works. The receptionist on the phone was super polite and nice, but I’ve never talked to a therapist before. I have no idea what she’s going to say.

  Maybe she’ll confirm my worst fears. Tell me I really am unlovable, or that I’m just doing the same thing with Lark that I’ve done in previous relationships—throwing myself into a messy situation because I can’t handle dating someone who’s nice and normal and available.

  It’s not that messy, I argue to myself.

  Right, argues the nasty voice straight back. You’re just working with him and his ex-wife both, all while secretly sleeping with him. After you promised her there was nothing between you two.

  I haven’t talked to Sheryl much since our lunch outing the one time. Lark seems to have taken over handling my company—or rather, he seems to have always been the most involved one, and these days Sheryl’s given up on keeping up. I have the occasional phone call with her, but it’s cursory, just check-ins and making sure I know what’s up next on the docket.

  After the big photoshoot at the magazine, which turned out to be a big hit, orders have been flooding in from all over the world. The next goal will be for me to ramp up production to keep up with those orders. Sheryl and Lark gave me funding and full discretion over what manufacturing company I want to partner with as I ramp up, and I’ve spent all my work time over the last week interviewing different factories. I know I want to work with a green company, one that pays their employees a fair wage and will only use organic products in my makeup, ones that haven’t been tested on animals.

  That, it turns out, narrows my field of potential manufacturers by a lot.

  But earlier this week, Lark and I met with a company based nearby, which met all of those criteria. Right away, I fell in love with the way they do business. It didn’t hurt that the woman who led us on the tour was friendly, smart, and answered all of my questions without batting an eyelash.

  By the end of the day, Lark and I stepped aside to talk about the decision in hushed whispers, and I was bright-eyed with enthusiasm. “It’s got to be her,” I insisted.

  “You know best,” he told me, with a wink. “But, if you asked my opinion, I’d agree.” Then he called Sheryl for me, to talk her into the idea.

  I was grateful for his unyielding support. I’m grateful for Sheryl’s, too, although during my few phone conversations with her, I always come away feeling nauseous with guilt.

  She doesn’t know about Lark and me yet. Lark keeps asking me when we can tell her. He doesn’t want to sneak around anymore. He wants to be able to declare his affection for me out in the open.

  But I can’t stop thinking about the lunch I had with Sheryl. The promise I made her. There’s nothing between me and him. It was a lie then, and it’s become a worse one now.

  So, before we break the news, I wanted to get myself right. See this therapist, talk through my own past issues. Maybe then I’ll be up to facing the truth, to going official with Lark before the whole world.

  With one more deep breath, I start up the steps into the office. There are at least half a dozen floors, and the map inside the entrance is confusing as hell. I wind up wandering in circles down the end of one hallway, completely lost. The floor map says I’m looking for room 312, but this is room 305, and the corridor dead-ends here. Behind me are rooms 300-305, and beyond that just the elevator bank.

  With a suppressed groan, I get ready to double back, when one of the doors nearby creaks open half an inch. There’s a woman standing in the doorway with her back to me, talking.

  “I think we really made some great progress today,” she’s saying, in that voice I’ve come to recognize as the TV therapists’ voice. Calm and soothing.

  The door that’s partially open reads Marital Counseling in black block letters, along with the name of a therapist beneath it, a Dr. Ann Latrobe.

  “Just work on the exercises I’ve assigned to you, and I’ll see you both back here next week,” she continues, still audible as I cross past the door and continue up the hallway, most of my attention focused on the door numbers, searching for my own entrance.

  Someone within the room, a man, murmurs quietly, followed by another woman, and then the door fully opens, the doctor’s bright voice growing louder in the hallway behind me.

  “Always a pleasure, Mr. and Mrs. Anderson,” she’s saying.

  My heart skids in my chest. Leaps into my throat.

  But I tell myself I’m being ridiculous. It’s a common name, after all. There are probably dozens of Andersons in this city alone.

  Except then I hear the reply. In a low, devastatingly familiar voice. “We’ll see you next week, same time.”

  No. My feet have stopped moving. I realize I should keep walking, get out of sight. But I can’t force myself to step forward, can’t force my legs to function. I’ve forgotten all about the room I’m looking for, or in fact why I’m even here myself. All I can think about is that voice.

  And the other, soft feminine voice that joins in a moment later. “That went well, I thought. Don’t you?”

  I can’t hear the mumbled reply through the rushing sound in my ears. But I do register the footsteps starting up the tile floors in my direction, at the far end of the hallway. Finally, belatedly, I spur myself into motion, moving faster than I could explain, if anyone were to stop me at this point.

  I don’t care. The last thing I want to do is be caught here like this. Spying. Overhearing something I’m clearly not meant to overhear.

  I make it to the elevator bank without incident, and hurry toward the opposite wing on the far side of the hall. Rooms 306-315, like a total idiot I failed to notice that on my first trip through this hall. Which is why I wound up overhearing something I wasn’t meant to hear, seeing something I shouldn’t have seen.

  There’s a reflective mirror opposite the elevator bank. Just before I duck around the far corner, I catch a single glimpse in it.

  Behind me, at the far end of the hallway, I glimpse Sheryl and Lark walking side-by-side. Mr. and Mrs. Anderson, fresh out of marriage counseling. And, apparently, very much not divorced.

  I can still hear him at the windswept beach he took me to, the beach where he claimed he’d never brought anyone
else. I don’t want any secrets between us anymore, he said, his voice a low thrum, so real I can almost feel his breath against my neck, warm at the edge of my ear.

  How could he? How could he say that, how could he make that promise? When all along, he knew he was harboring the biggest secret of all?

  My stomach flips again, and I have to pause to lean back against the hard paneled wall of the therapists’ office, feeling sick to my stomach. Tears sting at the backs of my eyes. That nasty little voice returns triply loud, far worse than ever before.

  You see? it hisses in my ear. I told you this was too good to be true. Of course a man like Lark could never fall for a girl like you. Nobody wants you.

  I press my hand over my mouth to stifle the sound, all too aware of the distant ping of the elevator, the low chatter of Lark and Sheryl’s voices as they climb into it. I manage to hold it together until the voices disappear. Until I’m alone in the empty hallway, the minutes ticking away, my therapy appointment entirely forgotten.

  Only then do I let the tears fall down my face, and the cries shake my shoulders.

  Because right there and then, I realize what I need to do. Lark and I are over.

  11

  Cassidy

  “I can’t get enough of you, Cassidy Marks. You know that?” The fire in Lark’s words is secondary only in heat to the sensation of his hot mouth, moving along the edge of my jaw. He catches the tip of my ear in his mouth, gently bites down until I gasp at the faint sting. Then he grins and keeps moving, his lips gliding down my neck, teeth grazing the delicate skin ever so lightly.

  I arch up against him, but it’s no use. He has my hands pinned over my head, both wrists held in one single large hand of his. His body, lying atop mine, is so strong and steel-sturdy, every press of his perfectly chiseled abs digging into my soft curves. I can only twist a little beneath him, enjoying the complete loss of control, the way he’s in charge now, and oh, he knows exactly what to do.

  He peels my shirt off with his free hand and uses it to tangle my hands to the headboard. I don’t mind, except for that it means I can’t trace my fingers along the edges of his muscles.

  But it’s fine, because a second later, he drags his own shirt over his head and tosses it aside, his muscles gleaming in the moonlight that shines through my bedroom window.

  “I’ve dreamt of you every damn night for so long,” he says, his voice low, thrumming with desire. “I’ve dreamt of all the places I want to touch you…” His hands brush my curves ever so slightly, making me tremble. “The places I want to kiss…”

  His lips brush the hollow of my throat, the sharp juts of my collarbone. He flattens his tongue against my breastbone and traces it down, down, between my breasts. He cups them each in one hand, his palm rough against the smooth, supple skin. I can tell my nipples are already rock hard, but they only get stiffer when he rolls his tongue over to one breast and sucks my whole areola between his lips.

  I moan, my back arching up off my sheets, which I can tell are already damp from sweat.

  He laughs faintly, his breath a hot white gust against my chest, as he shifts to the other breast, his tongue swirling around it. “I love watching you react,” he tells me, smirking up at me.

  From here, in the moonlight, those his deep green eyes snag on mine, impossible to look away from. He’s got the kind of gaze a girl could drown in. “Well,” I breathe, still trying to catch my breath, to make my lungs function normally. “You definitely know how to make me squirm.”

  He grins at that, his teeth flashing in the dim light. “Oh, I plan to do a lot more than that tonight.” His palm traces over my stomach, flattened against my curves. Down, down, until he reaches the fabric of my thin panties. When did he take off my pants? I don’t even remember. The whole world has gone hazy at the edges, and I have eyes only for this man.

  For all the dirty things he does to me at night.

  “I want to hear you screaming my name by the end of this,” he says, voice low and thrumming with urgent energy.

  Then he hooks a thumb under the edge of my panties, nudges them down my thighs, and I gasp as the cool evening air hits my bare pussy. God, I can already tell I’m wet. But the situation only grows more urgent as Lark bends to kiss my navel, his tongue flicking into the narrow hole there, his 5 o’clock shadow grazing my smooth stomach, making me tickle and squirm.

  He kisses his way lower, until his beard grazes the top of my mound. I gasp, and he grins up at me, unrepentant. “Yes,” he says, his voice a command. “More of that.” Then he flicks his tongue over my clit, expertly, because God knows he’s always been able to find it more easily than any other man I’ve ever slept with.

  I arch up off the bed, and he takes advantage of the motion, sliding both hands underneath me to grip my ass tightly in his fists.

  He licks my inner thigh, from just above my knee, all the way up to the crease where my leg meets my hip. Then, before I can twist and press my hip closer to his face, he pulls back, licking up the other leg the same way. Slow. Torturously so.

  “Dammit, Lark,” I murmur, my head drifting back toward the pillow.

  “Did you expect me not to tease you into oblivion tonight?” He clicks his tongue, smirking. “You know me better than that by now, Cassidy.”

  When he dips again, he spreads both my legs with firm, strong hands. Then he traces his tongue along the outer lips of my pussy, slow, savoring.

  “I always forget how incredible you taste,” he murmurs, just before he parts my pussy lips with two rough fingertips, and presses his tongue between, lapping at me, tracing the tip of his tongue around and around my entrance.

  My groan turns into a moan, and I twist against the sheets, my hips bucking toward his face.

  He lets me, and I wrap both thighs around his face, pressing myself up against him, so I can feel the brush of his beard against my inner thighs, rough, almost tickling, in comparison to that fucking tongue of his.

  The tongue that he’s pressing deep into my folds now, lapping back and forth along the length of my slit.

  “Louder,” he orders, but he doesn’t need to tell me twice. He pushes the tip of his tongue inside me, and I moan loud enough that I’m surprised my downstairs neighbors don’t pound on the floorboards. Then he swirls that tongue inside me, and I buck and twist, before I settle into a rocking motion, arching up off the bed and against his face as he pushes his tongue further into me, until his lips are pressed against my pussy lips, his tongue deep inside me, curled and stroking along my inner walls.

  He hits my G-spot, and my breath hitches. I’m saying something, begging him to keep going, but I can hardly even process my own voice through the fog of pleasure in my brain.

  Just when I’m at the edge though, right on the brink of orgasm, he pulls his tongue out of me. I groan in protest. “Lark,” I start, but he’s already over me, naked too, and when did he lose his pants? Normally I love that part. Watching him slowly strip, until his cock is bare before me, thick and throbbing and ready for me.

  Just like he is now.

  He positions himself at my entrance with a sly look. “I need to fuck you now, Cassidy. I cannot wait another fucking second,” he says. He pushes into me, a slow, smooth motion that makes my moans turn into faint little cries of pleasure.

  The way he stretches me, fills me… I’ve never felt like this before. As if I’m so completely full, all the way up.

  He lies down along me, and I know I’m sticky with sweat, but so is he, the mingled scent of our bodies and our sex filling the room as he grips my hips, his lips colliding with mine, his tongue parting my lips so that I taste my own juices on his mouth.

  When he draws back, it’s only to lock gazes with me, his intent and intense as ever. “I’ve missed this,” he breathes, which throws me for a second, because haven’t we been doing it all night?

  But then he’s pulling out, thrusting back into me, and I lose track of our conversation of words.

  At some point he
must have untied my hands, because I have use of them again. I wrap them around his strong torso, my legs around his hips, and I pull him down against me, thrusting my hips up against his to drive his cock deeper with every thrust.

  He starts to move faster, harder. Losing all control. I love this part, watching him lose it.

  “God.” He runs a hand through my hair, then grabs a fistful and pulls my head to the side, bending to bite at my neck gently, before he kisses it, alternately biting, kissing, until I know he’s going to leave a mark. He pulls back just far enough to laugh faintly, his breath ghosting over the heated skin he just bruised. “I wanted to make sure you’d remember this,” he says.

  As if I could forget.

  But he’s moving faster, harder again, and I buck against him, thrusting in time with him, until the whole bed is slamming into the wall, over and over, and the orgasm rushes toward me again, my clit already throbbing from his earlier ministrations. His cock seems to hit just the right angle every time, my G-spot thrilling with sensation. I let out a strangled cry, as the orgasm sweeps through my body, a rush of pleasure all the way from my scalp down to my toes.

  It seems to go on and on. I can feel myself tightening around him, convulsive, feel the deep ache of his cock as he continues to fuck me, close to his own finish. His breath speeds up, his heart races against mine, and—

  Buzz.

  I inhale sharply, my eyes snapping open.

  I’m alone in my bed, the sheets tangled around my naked body, soaked in sweat. At least some of the dream was right. I groan and sit up, rubbing at my temple where it throbs.

  Oh, right. Hangover. Because I spent last night with Becky drinking wine in my living room. Because I’d been refusing to hang out with her for weeks, because at first I was busy all the time with work, and then, for the last week…