Broken At Love (Whitman University) (12 page)

Her first
, my mind chided.

I growled, more desperate to feel her wrapped around me than I could believe. A deep breath helped, allowed me to push her back on the couch until she was flat against the tan cushions. My lips started at her jaw while my fingers played lower, trying not to push, wanting to make sure she wanted this as much as I did.

My mouth trailed down, wishing I had enough control to linger on her tits an hour more, because they were fucking magnificent. When I slipped a finger gently inside her there was no doubt she was as ready as I was. She clenched around the second invading finger, growing my need uncomfortably.

“Shit,” I murmured. The hot wetness at her center, the dampness across her chest and neck, were enough to make me worry I’d finish before we even got started.

Which was not typically a problem for me.

I moved lower, intent on making sure she got her pleasure before taking mine, but her fingers fisted in my hair and pulled my head up.

Her eyes met mine, wild and snapping, burning with lust. “No. I want you inside me. Not your fingers or your tongue. You.”

That was enough encouragement for me. I braced myself with one hand on the couch and nudged her knees farther apart, letting my hips fit in between them. When I slid inside her I almost collapsed from the intensity of the pleasure. Her spine arched, her body intent on pulling me closer, but I held still for a few seconds. Leaned down to kiss her lips and her jaw, her neck and her chest.

Set.

Emilie tipped her hips up, making me fall deeper inside her and wrenching a gasped moan from my throat. She smiled that saucy smile, sweat scattered across her forehead, and drew my mouth to hers again. I forgot about trying to go slow or be gentle, because nothing mattered to me but the perfect hotness of her wrapped around me, wanting me, encouraging me and meeting me at every thrust.

We moved together, increasing in intensity as our tongues played together and her hands roamed my body. Our skin slipped against one another’s and she came fast the first time, gasping her release with hot breath on my neck while her fingernails dug into my back. When I felt her building again I let go too, holding her up off the couch and tight against me as we shuddered together for several seconds. We stayed that way for a long time, me buried inside her, until my arms started to ache and she unwound her legs from around my back.

I flipped us quickly so that I pressed into the cushions and she rested against my chest. Her eyes sparkled, and I loved that she didn’t get shy and embarrassed like we’d just committed a crime. A lot of girls did that, and it always bothered me. It was sex, not murder. If we both wanted it—and we did—feeling shame ruined one of the better parts of life.

“I suppose your reputation will have to stay intact. Because…whew.”

“That’s good to know. And you’re not bad yourself.”

“I’m a girl. What else do you need?” She asked me with a smile, then laid her head underneath my chin.

You.

The thought came out of nowhere. No, it came from a place where sincere things were hidden away. Her teasing statement was true enough, in that I could get off with any willing girl provided there was enough alcohol or few enough lights. But the kind of sex we just had on a ratty old couch in a drafty loft…that was more than getting laid.

There was something between our bodies that went beyond chemistry. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d lost myself in someone that way; I had no idea if we’d moved together for thirty minutes or an hour, only that it had been the perfect amount of time. First times especially could tend toward awkward, no matter how experienced the participants. This felt like we’d done it a hundred times before; our bodies responded as though we knew one another intimately, but it was also a hot surprise at every turn.

“Maybe we could go to the museum thing together?” She murmured against my chest. “My parents decided to come after all and I could use the moral support.”

Match
.

I didn’t answer, letting her believe I’d fallen asleep again. After a moment or two she leaned up and pressed a kiss to my neck, the curled into my side. The feeling of her unbelievable naked skin pressed against mine made me hard again and I almost gave in to my desires, but then her breathing deepened and her muscles relaxed against me.

I tightened an arm around her waist, tugging her as close as humanly possible, then shifted slightly to take a deep breath, memorizing the way she smelled like fresh sunshine mixed with the salty sweat of sex. My eyes closed, too. A few more hours wouldn’t hurt anything.

Chapter Thirteen

Emilie

I woke up a few hours later, warm from the way Quinn’s arm pressed my body into his side.

The moment overwhelmed me but I drank it in, trying to remember what it felt like waking up in his arms, the way he smelled, how deliciously my muscles ached. Quinn’s deep steady breathing said he still slept and I lifted my head, memorizing his beautiful face. When no one watched him the tension in his jaw and mouth disappeared, leaving him smooth and looking almost happy.

The sun had risen high, burning off the gray fog that had enveloped the morning, and I guessed it was probably early afternoon. My stomach rumbled, the bagels from this morning still forgotten on the table, but food wasn’t on my mind.

I meant what I said to Quinn the last time we were here. There
was
more to him, I was sure of it, but I remained equally sure that he wasn’t ready to show that person to the world. Maybe because it sounded like his father made his life harder, or because his dreams were ripped from him last year when that injury forced him to leave the tour.

Or it might have been Alexandria.

I didn’t want to think about her and her gorgeous, blonde, five-foot-ten tennis body perfection. He’d had that every night, naked and willing in his bed, and it made me boil with jealousy no matter how good the sex had been this morning.

And it had been good. I thought. My experience certainly paled in comparison to Quinn’s, but it had never been so natural for me. Not so easy to let go, to not feel self-conscious but to just ask for what I wanted and have it given to me.

We couldn’t last that long. This wasn’t a relationship. I didn’t know what it was, exactly, but something made him keep hunting me down, coming around, and before today it hadn’t been the sex. Maybe he would never come back now.

If he was going to do that, I needed at least one more memory, even though it would surely haunt me sooner than later. My hand slid across his naked stomach, marveling at the way my body grew heavy in response to the hard muscle that covered him. When my fingers teased lower, dipping through the bramble of hair that grew thicker below his stomach, he hardened in his sleep.

When I wrapped my hand around the length of him he woke up with a groan, turning so that we faced each other but not so I had to give up my grasp. Quinn gave me a sleepy smile, a quick flash of his teeth against his lips catching my breath, then trailed a lazy hand down to cup my breast.

It would be impossible to describe how much I loved the feeling of his hands on me. They were kind but demanding, soft but skilled, and soon I was the one arching forward and begging for more when it had been my intention to do that to him.

“
Mi sopresita
,” he breathed against my neck, sending shivers down my spine. “Why does it feel like I’ve been waking up naked with you for years?”

The words fell quiet on my ears, as though he didn’t really mean to say them aloud, but they stopped my heart in my chest. He felt it too, that familiarity between our bodies. What did it mean?

“Yet I’m still your little surprise,” I teased, pulling back so I could drink in his electric blue gaze.

“Yes. Even more so now that I know what a willing little tigress you are in the sack.”

His words turned me on, emboldened me further, and I hooked a leg over his hip and lifted up to straddle him. A surprised chuckle turned to a lusty growl when I guided him inside me and sat down hard, moving my hips to meet his needy strokes.

Those hands reached up to find my breasts again, testing their weight, driving me mad, but as our playfulness gave in to frantic desire he slid them to my hips. He pushed me hard against him and we moved faster, heat rising and pounding through my blood. It swirled and lit my nerves on fire until my body moved on its own, desperate to find release. When I tightened around him, my fingers curled into his chest, our eyes locked as his name came out in a whisper.

Quinn moved quickly after I relaxed on top of him, pushing me onto my back with one hand and digging in his pants on the floor with the other.

Condom. I’d totally forgotten.

He slid it on and was back between my thighs in a matter of minutes. The feeling of him filling me felt as good as my orgasm a moment before, and I thought I would never tire of seeing his face above mine, of hearing the way my name scraped hoarse out of his throat when he finished a few minutes later and collapsed in a sweaty heap against my chest. I wanted to do this again and again as many times as we could before our inevitable parting.

Our skin tingled where it met and I wondered how we would ever get dressed, but then my stomach let loose an impressive growl. We both dissolved into laughter before rolling off the couch and stuffing ourselves back into wrinkled clothes.

Quinn stared at me while I found my tank top and slid it back on, his lips twisted into an expression that looked like regret.

“What?” I asked.

He didn’t answer right away. Instead he knelt between my knees as I sat on the couch and kissed me softly on the lips. Then his mouth trailed down and hovered over the center of my right breast, not touching but breathing hot air through the flimsy material. The sensation made me flushed with need in an instant, but before I gave in, he stood.

“I don’t like you with clothes on, anymore.”

I chucked weakly, trying to gather myself but distracted by the new bulge pushing against the front of his pants. It seemed as though twice a day wasn’t enough for either one of us. Even so, he let me finish getting dressed, and ushered me out of the loft and down the stairs.

On the street below it felt like everyone who glanced our direction knew we’d spent the entire day in bed.

“I’m not dressed to go anywhere to eat,” I pointed out, even though my stomach demanded sustenance of the nutritional variety.

Quinn smiled down at me. “I rather like the outfit.”

“I don’t think it’s appropriate for public. Especially not in January.”

“Fine. So how about you drive your car back to the sorority house and change clothes—take a shower if you want, although I think you smell sexy as hell the way you are—and I’ll do the same and then pick you up in a couple of hours.”

“Deal.”

I lingered, wanting to kiss him goodbye, but the first real moment of awkwardness we’d experienced pushed between us. Quinn’s gaze fell to my lips. What I saw shot a shiver down my spine. In addition to the lust I’d quickly become familiar with, there was something else that kept popping up unexpectedly—regret.

A moment later his mouth crushed mine, his arms circling my waist and lifting me hard against him, and I forgot my own name never mind what I had been thinking. It was more than a see-you-later kiss. Quinn’s tongue pushed against mine and I responded, eager for him still and getting a thrill from the public display.

He pulled quickly away and stepped back. The loss of heat gave me a chill; I wrapped my arms around my waist.

“So, two hours?” Quinn asked, refusing to meet my eyes.

“Sure.” I wanted to ask if he was okay but I didn’t.

I think part of me wanted to believe for a few more hours that things would find a way to work themselves out.

***

It was exactly two hours later when a sleek black Town Car pulled up to the curb at the DE house. Ruby had left a while ago with some of the other girls, including Annette, who still wasn’t speaking to me. I guess Ruby wasn’t too happy with me, either, since I’d bailed on Girls Night.

A driver in black pants, a white shirt, and a matching hat and jacket stepped out into the early evening. He crossed to my side of the car while I waited. I’d been carted everywhere by a similar car and driver most of my life so the protocol was familiar—it wasn’t my job to open the door.

Except he didn’t open the door.

Instead the stoic blond man tipped his hat. “Evening, Miss. Are you Emilie Swanson?”

“Yes.” My stomach twisted. All of the sudden I knew Quinn wasn’t waiting inside that car. Which meant he was running again, the way he did last night after the elevator.

“This is for you.” The driver handed over a white envelope with not even my name scrawled on the front. “Good evening.”

He got back in the car and pulled away from the curb. I stood trembling in front of the DE house, terrified to open that envelope and read the inevitable words. Even though I’d guessed the conclusion of any story that involved Quinn Rowland, and I had to admit it came earlier than expected.

Unless today hadn’t been for him the way it was for me. Exceptional.

In the empty room upstairs I took a deep breath and pulled out the folded note.

I don’t think we should see one another again. Thank you for the past several days—I’ve enjoyed you more than I can say—and please don’t take this as a comment on anything you’ve done. I’m the one who is broken. Best of luck
.

Best of fucking luck? Was he kidding with this shit?

I crumpled the note and tossed it into the sink, curling up on top of my covers. The dirty white stuffed polar bear I’d brought from home smelled familiar against my cheek and it wasn’t the first time his head soaked through with my tears.

I’d wallow in my sorrow and shame, embarrassment, and anger at my own stupidity until Ruby got home. Then she could smack some sense into me.