Chandler: A Standalone Contemporary Romance (13 page)

But that can’t be it because she’s given me all the cues. Her grey eyes are clouded with desire. Her breathing has become quick and shallow. Her tongue darts out to moisten her lower lip.

Then, in a husky voice, she says, “Make me.”

I know exactly what she means. I know because it’s what I want her to mean, and because we’ve become so connected in these ways that I can just tell. She wants to fuck as much as I do. But it’s a game now. A game where I
make
her.

She gives me a beat to process. Her body visibly primes, her limbs prep to take off.

I’m ready when she lunges, though, and I catch her at her wrist. She pulls and twists, and I grin because all I have to do is grab her other arm, and I’ll have her trapped.

Except I’m too slow, and she takes advantage of my hesitation. She stomps down hard on my foot, and before I can react, her free hand flies through the air. With a loud
smack
, her palm meets my face.

Automatically, I drop her wrist to rub my jaw. Our eyes lock and we freeze.

I can’t believe she did that.

The look on her face says she can’t believe she did it either.

And maybe it’s messed up, and I should be pissed or confused but instead I’m turned on as fuck. My dick is throbbing, and I swear all my primal instincts have kicked in because I can smell her so clearly that my mouth waters. My want turns into need. Desperate, urgent need.

From the way her brow rises, I think she knows. And from the glint in her eye, I’m pretty sure she’s feeling exactly the same. The edges of her mouth turn up into a wicked smile. Then, letting my jacket slip off her shoulders, she runs.

With her heels off, she’s fast, sprinting back along the trees. But I’m right behind her, my adrenaline pushing me to chase, and even though she’s an experienced runner, I’m on her in no time. I grab her by the elbow, and before she can pull away, I fold both arms around her in a tight embrace.

“You think you can run from me?” My voice is low and gruff at her ear. “You think I won’t come after you?”

“Let go,” she whimpers, and I know she doesn’t mean it. She knows she can end this, knows all she has to do is say
stop
.

And as long as she’s not saying that, every other word she utters means
go
.

“No way, little girl. You got me hot, and now you’ve got to pay for it.”

But she’s not giving in that easily. She fights back, pushing her elbows up into my sides. It surprises me enough to lose my grip. She stumbles forward, out of my arms and onto her knees.

Immediately, she tries to stand. This time, though, I’m quick, and while she’s still halfway down, I lunge my weight onto her, knocking her to the ground. She wrestles as I shift my body over her, pinning her down forcefully. All the while, she repeats the same words as she struggles, “Let me go, let me go!”

She’s really into it, screaming, even. But we’re far enough from the house for her not to be heard easily, and I’m into this too, so with one hand wrapped in her hair, I twist her head sharply to the side and push her cheek to the ground. “One way or another you’re taking my cock, and if you don’t shut the fuck up, it’s going to be down your throat.”

She gulps but she quiets. I nudge her legs apart with a knee, and with my free hand, I reach up under her dress as I continue to play the part she’s asked me to play—a part I’ve taken on happily. “This is going to be so good,” I promise her on a low rumble. “You know that, right? You want me inside you, you little dicktease.”

“Please,” she whimpers, and it makes my cock grow thicker because it feels like she’s begging me to stop, when I know she’s really begging me to go on. And somewhere in the back of my mind I recognize how perverted this is, how vile. I’m getting off on pretending to violate the girl I like. What kind of fucked-up fuckhead am I?

But she wants it. I
know
she wants it, and in case I don’t know, she tells me with her body language, with the way she moves her legs farther apart, granting me better access. With the way her breath hitches with excitement. With the way her panties are soaked when my fingers find her crotch.

“See how much you want this? I knew you did.” Suddenly, I remember something important. Thinking fast, I work the question I need to ask into the scene. “Are you still going to want it when I tell you I don’t have a condom with me?”

“I don’t want it,” she squeaks, but at the same time, she nods.

It’s the green light I need. “Oh, you want it, little girl. Don’t lie to me.”

It’s not easy, but somehow I manage to pull her underwear down one-handed. Then I tackle my belt. Then my zipper. All the while, she writhes below me, hissing, protesting, never using the one word that will end this.

And then my cock is out, and I’m shoving inside of her, and Jesus, it’s ecstasy how tight and warm she feels around me. She gasps as I fill her, her character breaking as she lets out a soft, “Yes.”

“That’s it,” I tell her, driving into her again. “I knew you wanted it. Hard to fight me now, isn’t it?”

She grunts in response, shifting beneath me, but this time instead of struggling, she’s reaching her hand down to rub her clit, and goddamn it’s so hot how she wants this as much as I do. How she wants it
the way
I do.

I find my pace quickly, and while it fits the scene, I’m not playing anymore, uttering dirty, vulgar honest truths as I rut into her. “I fuck you every day,” I confess. “Did you know that? In my head, with my hand. I fuck you in so many ways. In your mouth. On your knees. By force. Willingly. So many ways I fuck you, but it never feels as good as when I’m inside you. Your pussy is so tight, Genny. So, so good.”

I’m crazed with my lust. I’m barely restraining her now, but the illusion of the scenario has set fire into my veins, fire that won’t be smothered until I’ve given her everything I have. Until I’m making her fall apart beneath me. Until I’m spilling my release inside of her.

She’s the one to get there first. “Oh god, oh god, oh god,” she says as she starts to clench around me. “Oh god, like that. Harder.” Then, “I’m coming! I’m coming so hard.”

I pick up speed, racing to my own finish. And when I cross that line, I explode like never before, ramming so far into her, I’m not sure where she begins and I end.

I’m not sure I want to know ever again.

She’s breathless and panting when I roll off her and gather her into my arms. I study her closely. Her face is dirty and her dress is rumpled and she has a bruise forming on her upper arm, but she’s smiling, and her expression appears happy and sated.

Still, I ask, “Are you okay? Was
this
okay?”

She nods. “I should be asking you the same thing.” She rubs her hand gently over my slapped cheek.

“Very okay.” I kiss her, wishing this would never end. Wishing I could find the way to make this thing between us last. Wishing she didn’t live in another country and that the power to keep her here were in
my
hands and not my
brother’s
.

As always, though, I hide those wishes behind a landscape of charm. “You can ask me to
make you
anytime you want,” I tell her, and I mean it.

But all I’m really thinking is how much I wish she’d ask me to make her
stay
.

L
ater
, it’s my turn to be vulnerable.

We lie wrapped around each other naked in bed, and in the dark, I tell her about Gwen. Tell her how I fell in love. Tell her how I got my heart broken.

“So her ex had been gone for how long when you started seeing her?” Genny asks after I give her the basic gist of the story.

I rub a hand up and down her back while I talk. “About nine months maybe?” I don’t remember the exact timeline really. JC had been in witness protection without any contact with Gwen. “But they hadn’t totally broken up. He said he would come back.”

“And yet she still got involved with you?” I can’t see her face in the position we’re in, but from the tone of her voice, I suspect Genevieve is frowning.

I get it. It was a situation that once made me frown too. A lot.

It makes me happy that she cares enough to have that reaction.

“I think she thought he’d be back by then,” I tell her. “I was just supposed to be a distraction while she figured out what she did next.”

Genny tilts her head up toward me, and this time I can
see
she’s frowning. “That doesn’t sound very nice of her. You’re just her plaything while she decides if she’s waiting for her real lover to return? That’s a load of tosh.”

“Well.” Once upon a time I would have agreed. Now it doesn’t bother me like it once did. “I actually didn’t mind being a plaything.” Gwen had been ten years older than me. The sex had been hot. The whole situation had been hot, whether she had feelings for me or not.

But back then, it had stung more. “I
did
mind not knowing her heart was already spoken for. Even when she’d always been clear it was just sex, it would have been nice to know.”

Genny sits up and stares at me, her eyes aflame. “I can’t believe you’re so cavalier about it. ‘
It would have been nice’
? She should have told you. Plain and simple. That she didn’t is just mean.”

Jesus, I love it when she’s feisty.

“And how could she expect you not to develop feelings for her? It’s natural to fall for someone you’re intimate with. Especially when it’s repeated
intimacy. No matter what our culture tries to make us believe, it stirs things. How could she not have fallen for you as well?”

Our eyes meet, and in unison, we both realize what she’s said. How it could apply to our current situation. Genny’s cheeks turn beet red, and she lowers her eyes, and all I can think is
Oh my god, is she really falling for me?

I want to know so badly that I almost ask.

But in the end, I’m chickenshit, and instead I only make allusions. “That is the burning question, really,” I tease, trying to lighten her embarrassment. “How can anyone not fall for me is an even more accurate question.”

She gives me a lopsided grin and settles her head on my chest without remarking on my comment—maybe she’s chickenshit too. “I’ve decided I don’t like her,” she says after a beat. “I’ll be nice to her in person, of course. But she’s heartless.”

I chuckle, stroking my hand through her hair. “Gwen isn’t heartless. We’re friends now. Good friends.”

Genny harrumphs, her finger drawing lazy circles over my chest. “Doesn’t mean I have to like her.”

I love how good her touch feels on my skin, and I almost miss her subtext. But then it hits me—“You’re jealous!”

I love that she’s jealous.

Her hand stops mid-circle. “Do I have a reason to be jealous?”

I shake my head then realize she can’t see it. “I don’t have any feelings for Gwen any more beyond friendship. I told you that earlier.”

“Then I’m not jealous.”

“Well. You are. But that’s cool. I like it.”

She sits up and scowls playfully at me, but she doesn’t deny my accusation a second time. Is it fucked up how much I love her attitude toward my ex? Because I love it a lot.

When she lies down again, it’s on her side, facing me. I move toward her until our noses are inches from touching and wrap my arm around her waist. She fits so perfectly against me. Like we were made to be this close.

With her eyes pinned to mine, she asks, “Have you ever been the way you are with me with anyone else?”

I squint, trying to understand exactly what she’s asking. “Like what way that I am? Like where I hold you all night? I’m holding you all night, by the way.”

“We’ll see.”

“I’m holding you,” I say with an authoritative tone I know she won’t refute.

Goose bumps sprout up on her skin. “Like that—like bossy and…I don’t know.”

“Dominating?”

“Yeah. And rough. And primal.”

I bring my finger up to trace the line of her lips. It gives me an excuse to look somewhere other than her eyes when I answer. “I told you before that I haven’t.”

“I want to hear it again. You’ve never tied someone up?”

“Nope.”

“Pushed them to the ground?”

I shake my head.

“What about spanked them?”

“Not like how I spanked you.” Not with a belt. Not so hard it left marks. My gaze flickers up to hers, suddenly worried. “Can you tell?”

“No,” she says softly. “And yes.”

I stay silent, waiting for her to expand, and she does. “When we’re like this, it feels like you’re never anything else. Like this is who you are. Kind and gentle and kind of cocky but also goofy.”

“There you are with the goofy again…”

She ignores my interjection. “It doesn’t seem at all like you’d be the type of guy to strap a belt around a woman’s wrists or shag her in a bathroom or pretend to force her in the backyard of your parents’ summer home. But then, when you’re doing that, it seems like there’s no other way you’d ever fuck. You’re natural at it. And the only reason I suspect that it’s new to you is because of that first time. The awful time.”

“Oh my god. It wasn’t awful. Would you stop saying it was awful?” I pretend to strangle her, taking note for the future of how it makes her eyes cloud with desire. “It wasn’t maybe as good as the times after, but I couldn’t stop thinking about you afterward.”

“Fine, it wasn’t awful.” Her lids lower and she gets abruptly bashful. “I actually enjoyed it more than I let on.”

Yes! I knew it hadn’t been terrible!

Containing my excitement, I use a single finger to lift her chin up. “Look at me, Genny.” Her eyes flutter up to meet mine. “Why didn’t you tell me that before?”

“Because I didn’t want to like you.”

My mouth gets dry. My pulse picks up. My chest tightens, as though my ribs are trying to close the gaps in my skeleton, desperately trying to protect anything from getting inside. She’s told me this before, but this time it really sinks beneath my skin and into my blood. Into my bones.

“And you really do
like
me?” Somehow my words come out steady, despite how shaken I feel inside.

“What do you think?” She glances down at my lips, and I take the cue, moving in to kiss her. Her mouth molds easily to mine, even when I get brutal—which I do. I wrap one hand around her neck, my thumb lightly pressing against her windpipe—not enough to hurt her, but enough so she’s aware.

It arouses her. I can tell by the nature of her kiss, how it gets hungrier. Wanton and wild, mirroring everything I’m giving her.

Soon I’m hard and eager to press into her, but at the same time, I’m not ready to move on from this kiss. From this moment. From this out-of-breath, on-the-edge-of-a-precipice, scared-out-of-my-mind feeling scratching inside of me.

I pull away to look at her.

“I like this.” Her eyes are heavy and dark. “I like that I’m the only one you’ve been like this with.”

“I like that you’re the only one who brings it out in me.”
I love it, actually.

And that’s when I know.

Goddammit all to hell.

I’m in love with her, aren’t I? That feeling in my chest, that desire to help her out with her job, my fear of her leaving—this is the explanation. This is the emotion I’m hiding. I’ve tried so hard to ignore it, but I’m fucking head-over-heels in love with her.

I’m pretty sure I should have seen this coming.

Then why do I feel like I’ve been run over by someone else as they’re stealing my Bugatti?

“Is this fast?” she whispers, and now I know she’s feeling something too.

“Don’t think about it,” I whisper back, praying that the dark and the thinness of our voices can keep the words from holding weight. From anchoring in and changing everything.

“This is fast,” she says again on the softest of breaths.

Neither of us moves, both of us completely encapsulated in this single moment, frightened and thrilled all at once. Like a roller coaster. Like speeding down an empty highway. “Fast things aren’t bad things.”

“But they’re often over too quickly.”

“Or they’re not. The thing is sometimes you don’t know how long a stretch of highway is going to be until you get to the end. All you can do is buckle up and enjoy the ride.” Funny how I sound more confident than I feel.

“Pretty sure I’ve already been buckled up with you, and yes, I enjoyed the ride.”

I grin, grateful that she’s lightened the tension. “Pretty sure I’ll be riding you again real soon.”

She licks her lips and nods once, and I’m pretty sure she’s talking about more than the next round when she says, bravely, “All right. I’m ready.”

All right then, I’m ready too.