Was she heartbroken too?
Did I ruin her life the way I thought she ruined mine by not making a better attempt to find common ground? She’d offered somewhat of a solution… that we wait for kids and focus on our careers, but I’d wanted no part of it. All I heard was that she didn’t want to make me happy.
Was I the one who killed our relationship by being inflexible and placing the blame on her shoulders for not wanting children right away?
Did I fail to really listen?
The answer is just on the other side of that door.
CHAPTER 15
Ladd
I knock on the interconnecting door and listen intently. I have no clue if Greer went straight to sleep. Part of me hopes she has. While I need to have this conversation, there’s another part of me that doesn’t want to.
It’s dismay that should slam into me when she opens the door. Now I’ll be faced with an unpleasant conversation and perhaps a truth that could throw into doubt everything I thought I knew. But it’s straight-up lust that sizzles through me as Greer stands there in a towel, her shoulders still dewy from a shower or bath. Her hair is wet, already combed and slicked back from her face, the ends barely tickling her shoulders. With her color back to its original and the haircut she had when we were together, it’s like traveling into the past.
All thoughts of having a serious discussion evaporate, and I am nothing more than a man standing there looking at the only woman who has managed to push his every button. A woman who could get me excited by snort laughing or by washing dishes while humming. Put a naked Greer Hathaway in a towel, and it’s lust overload.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, head tipped slightly.
Of course she would assume something is wrong, as I have no reason to talk to her tonight. We’re not friends who would chat from boredom or a need to be social. We’ve already hashed out the majority of our game plan to bring in Mejia.
There’s absolutely no reason for me to be standing in the doorway of her room right now, and yet I doubt a speeding train could knock me out of the way.
“Ladd,” Greer says with annoyance. “What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong is I didn’t expect you to answer the door wearing that,” I grouse, nodding at her towel.
She glances down at it, then back to me, something playing at her lips that’s a cross between ire and amusement. “Would you prefer I wear nothing?”
Christ. Had she been wearing nothing, there’s a good chance I would’ve shed my clothes already and had her beneath me on the floor. Thank fuck for small miracles.
“What do you need?” she asks, sounding short on patience.
“I need…” I rub at my jaw anxiously. I need what? “I just…”
Greer frowns. She knows me well, that I’m never at a loss for words.
What do I need?
So many things I couldn’t possibly begin to count, but only one that stands out as dire.
I step into the room and reach for Greer.
It’s sudden but not startling as she doesn’t back away. My arms yank the towel from her body, and I’m not sure who moves first, but our arms are around each other and our mouths turn devouring.
My hands move and wander shamelessly over Greer’s body, exploring dips and valleys I still remember by heart all these years later. Her hands work at my clothes, pulling and tearing to free me so she can reciprocate.
Sometimes… fuck… we’d just lie in bed for hours and stroke each other’s skin while we talked after making love. She knows my body as well as I know hers. She’s touched every inch of me a hundred times.
The soft skin and all these dips and valleys… she feels exactly the same.
No, better because it’s also new again.
Time is irrelevant, but at some point we’re on the bed, both of us naked, and I’m so hard for her that I hurt. Because my fingers are demanding, I know she’s wet and ready for it.
Throughout all our foreplay, neither of us says a word. Not an endearment, no encouragement, and no affirmation that this feels good. We know it does by the sounds we produce, but words are off-limits. We don’t want to break the spell.
Greer is under me, and as I reach down to push her legs apart, she rolls with a hard push on my chest. I’m flat on my back and she straddles me. Her hand goes to my aching dick, and she strokes it hard, causing my eyes to nearly roll back in my head.
“Condom?” she rasps, her eyes glazed with lust.
“Condom?” I repeat, my head fuzzy with an insane need for her.
“Tell me you have a condom,” she demands, hand stroking me hard.
I shake my head, more to clear it than denial. I do not have a condom. I had not slipped one in my wallet after our last encounter.
I lift my head, take in Greer straddled over me, my cock in her hand and just inches away from what I know is going to feel like heaven.
“I’m safe.” My words stutter as I try to keep my wits while she continues to jack me. “If you tell me you are, I’ll believe you.”
Greer’s hand stills, and her eyes cloud a bit. “You’d believe me? You’d trust me to tell you the truth?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Greer,” I snarl, jackknifing up on the bed and putting my arms around her back. Her hold on my dick relinquishes, and I pull her in so we’re face-to-face. “I’m getting ready to take you into a life-or-death situation and you’re my only backup. Of course I trust you. I’ve never not trusted you… ever. Despite everything, my trust in you has never diminished.”
Something painful flickers across her face, but it’s gone as quickly as I recognize it. In its place is a thin haze of sorrow, and her hand comes to my chest to push me back down to the mattress.
When we were together, it was rare I’d ever let her be on top. Greer is an incredibly strong woman both physically and in spirit. But she’s a woman who likes to give up control in the right circumstances and to be dominated. She told me once that she never feels as delicately female than when she’s in bed with me, and it’s something I took to heart.
But right now, her hand encircling my cock again, I can tell by her expression she needs to be on top. And it’s not to dominate me but rather… to apologize.
To try to gift me with the pleasure of her body and by demanding I lie back and enjoy. We both know it will never make up for anything between us, and I don’t have the heart to tell her that no matter our position, it will feel just as good if I’m doing the work, but I believe that somehow Greer needs this.
So I give it to her.
Lifting her hips, she inches forward on her knees, using her hand to guide me to her wet core. I groan at the first touch of her hot flesh against mine, memories flooding back at the recognition of her perfect body accepting mine.
Greer slides down onto my shaft so slowly, I grit my teeth and clench my ass cheeks so as not to buck upward into her. It’s torture, but of the sweet variety.
Rocking and circling her hips, she works herself onto my girth until she’s fully seated. A soft sigh escapes her lips. My hands move to her thighs, smooth up to her hips where they rest lightly. I have no intention of interfering with whatever she wants to do.
Time seems to stand still as our eyes lock. I can’t look away, but when she moves her hips, my eyes inadvertently close from the intense pleasure she creates. It’s not just her movement that assaults my senses.