Taking her face in my palms, I leveled her with my stubborn glare. “I may not be with you physically, but my heart will be. Why are you constantly questioning that?” She opened her mouth to speak and then slammed it shut. “What? Talk to me.”
“Make love to me.” I wanted to push her to answer my question, but doing that could ruin what I needed from her tonight. And once again that selfish prick reared his ugly head by doing what she asked.
With her eyes still pinned to mine, I lowered my mouth over hers. All the sexual frustrations I had pent up bubbled to the surface as I kissed her deeply. When I broke away, her eyes remained closed for a few seconds longer.
I continued to control the situation, raising her shirt over her head and tossing it. For each article of clothing that I removed, I countered with one of my own. Once we were both completely bare, I lifted and placed her in the center of the bed and lay right beside her. My arms snaked around her body, our legs automatically entwined, and she began to caress my chest.
“I love you, Liv. There will never be a day I won’t love you. That’s enough. That’s all we need.” Again, she pressed her lips to mine without responding, and that scared the fuck out of me.
But I’d let it go for one more night.
During the kiss, I molded one hand around her breast while my hard cock invaded the space between us. I needed to taste her and maneuvered her body until her pussy hovered over my face. The moment I began to circle her clit with the pad of my thumb, she arched and moaned so erotically that I practically came right then. Replacing my thumb with my tongue, I picked up the motion where I left off, licking and sucking every part of her pussy. She moved her hips against my mouth, manipulating my direction until she trembled above me and then stilled.
A long, breathy sigh told me she was completely sated. The just-came expression on her gorgeous face was the most beautiful sight I’d ever seen.
And then, without warning, she surprised me by turning herself around to grab my cock. Her grip remained firm as her mouth covered my tip. She dragged her tongue up and down my entire length, driving me insane. A frantic pounding in my chest mimicked the pulsing in my cock. As much as I wanted to come down her throat, I wanted to be buried in her pussy more.
Gently lifting her face with both my palms, she looked at me inquisitively. “I want to finish.”
“I want to finish too… inside you.”
On a nod, she turned and straddled my waist just as I pulled her head down toward mine. When I stroked my tongue against hers, she moaned erotically. When I positioned my cock at her entrance, she rested her hands on my shoulders. When I slipped inside her, she leveled me with an intense stare.
I’d like to say that with each thrust I felt our issues vanishing into thin air. That the familiarity of being in her cleared my mind and escalated my lust. That with each plunge deeper and deeper while she gasped against my lips, I temporarily forgot what had conflicted me a few minutes earlier.
That would be a lie.
Our lovemaking had a desperation to it that had never existed between us before.
Regardless that my engorged cock filled the space inside her, or that she flexed her hips, sending a jolt of electricity through my body, it felt off. Despite a hair-raising tingle that coursed through me, traveled down my spine, and settled at the base of my hard-on, it felt wrong.
I tried to focus on the way she swallowed me whole, enveloped me with her warmth. I used every fiber of my being to slow my impending release, to prolong the mind-blowing sensations, to relish in her voracious greed, to pretend we were fine.
My mind and my body were at war with each other. Denial forced me to ignore it all.
“I’m close, Liv,” I admitted through gritted teeth. Shoving a hand between us, she caught it before it reached her clit.
“No need. I’m close too.”
Knowing that she was about to come from my cock alone made my attempt to control the situation a futile effort. I lost the battle, submitted to the strain that caused my muscles to shudder as she constricted around me, and came along with a ferocious growl.
“Fuuuuck,” I cried out, emptying myself into her. It seemed to go on forever before I was completely drained.
And then I buried my face in her neck, inhaling her, and cried.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Alivia
Loving someone as much as I loved Shane, and as much as he loved me, should have been enough. That kind of love should cancel any hurt, any pain, any doubts. I guessed sometimes love wasn’t always enough. And despite making love to each other while feeling every emotion on the spectrum, we were both no less confused than we had been.
When he broke down, so had I. We clung to each other for what felt like an eternity, and as profound as that moment had been in our relationship, neither of us had mentioned it again.
I’d only seen Shane cry once, and that was when I’d fallen off the jungle gym at his beach house and broke my arm. He said it was his fault for tickling me and moped about it for days. Funny, he acted no differently back then than he had these past few weeks, believing all my angst was his fault as well.
When he appeared at my apartment door this morning unannounced, looking like death warmed over, at first I assumed it had to do with all that had happened the night before. Besides the chaos that forced us to leave Chase’s party less than an hour after arriving, the hours spent after were heavy with desperation and laced with fear… on both our parts.
And then, because the universe had a sick sense of humor, Cannon’s band had to unexpectedly fly to LA for promotional appearances that had been rescheduled.
We had one hour.
All the things I hadn’t said the night before, assuming I had all week to truly explain why I’d been acting the way I had, slipped off my list of priorities. All the special moments we’d hoped to share before I moved into my dorm vanished off our radar. And all we ended up doing for those torturously long sixty minutes was hold each other, kiss each other, and tiptoe around the reason our lovemaking last night had felt like a goodbye.
One thing was for sure: making plans and hanging your excitement on them was a waste of time. Life could turn on a dime and pull the rug right from beneath you.
I had high hopes for this week—days spent with my family or packing up, nights spent with Shane. Because he was now away, I called Kim and asked her to spend the day with me. She wanted to know all that happened after Shane interrupted our talk, but I said I’d explain once I saw her. It was a lot to ask, since she had so much to do before their drive to Massachusetts the next day. My bestie easily agreed, claiming she was already packed and ready to go. Even if she weren’t, I had no doubt she would stay up all night to put my needs first.
I would’ve loved to have spent the day doing all the things we loved, visiting MoMA, having lunch in the park, catching a cheesy rom-com at the multiplex. But because of the situation regarding my safety, Mom had a catered brunch delivered to our apartment along with arranging manicures and pedicures for us this afternoon.
After the concierge announced Kim was on her way up, I leaned against the doorframe, waiting for her. Not surprisingly, the first thing she asked two steps out of the elevator was, “Okay, now can you tell me what the hell happened to you guys last night? I know you bolted. Who wouldn’t after that scene? But you had me worried when you didn’t text me back.”