Keeping Pace (13 page)

The sound he made when he licked my cream almost made me come.

It wasn’t enough for him and Josh lowered himself between my legs, his face hovering just above me. The first caress of his tongue was light. Delicate. But Josh’s grip on my thighs tightened, and his tongue slipped farther inside. His mouth danced over my exposed cunt, and my hips rocked, an encouraging partner in that dance.

“Josh!” I cried out. He made me hurt inside, the kind that made my heart swell, and brought me to the edge of a cliff over which I wanted to happily tumble. He pulled again and again on my clit, a gentle teasing suction, and I had to grasp the sheets to keep me from falling.

“Damn, you taste so sweet.”

I couldn’t get my brain to come up with some semi-intelligent, semi-sexy reply. The moment his tongue dipped inside again, any thoughts that tried to form shattered.

Josh kissed my body, loving it with his tongue and his lips. Consuming what I offered him freely. Tasting the passion he incited.

I called out to him as an orgasm wrapped me in its hold, making my muscles go rigid under an immense weight from which I couldn’t extract myself. Unbelievable pleasure, too much sensation, swelled inside me, rushing through me until it touched every place within. I cried out to my lover again, and encouraged, he doubled his efforts. By the time I was seeing black at the edge of my vision, I was panting and too boneless to do anything but submit to the way he played my body.

Then he was kissing me again, teasing my tongue with his. Allowing me to savor the flavor of my arousal. And it was so good to feel the weight of him on me. To taste myself but still find the trace of Josh in that kiss.

He stretched past me, reaching for the nightstand. I knew what he wanted. We’d stopped putting the condoms away after the first two days together when we’d grown too frantic in our desire to be hindered by a simple drawer. Now, he sought one of the packets still lying there in haphazard stacks. Even during our time apart, it had never occurred to me we wouldn’t use them again.

Now I wasn’t so sure.

“Josh… Wait…” I tugged on his arm, needing to get his attention. Needing for him to look at me.

“Gina, I need you.” Breathless. Hoarse. Sexy.

Although he’d elevated himself on his forearms above me, I was cradling a lot of his weight between my thighs. His cock was so very close to the entrance of my body. “I need you too, baby. But…no barriers between us, okay?”

My heart tried to kick its way out as I said those words, and I swore I felt his respond in the same way.

Simple math told me I wasn’t ovulating, and the odds of conceiving were slim to none, but of course, there was always that chance. But this wasn’t about creating a life, no matter how much I thought about it recently. We’d done the long talk about our health and safety already, so there was little risk in that regard.

This was about being closer to Josh.

“Are you sure?” he said gently before brushing my cheek with his lips.

I nodded because my throat tightened, making it too difficult to speak. For some reason I couldn’t name, my eyes watered, and a single tear tracked its way down my cheek.

Josh visually followed the trail but used his thumb to wipe it away. He lowered his mouth to mine, and I angled my pelvis, making way for him. When he entered my body, for the first time with nothing between us, he gave me the sweetest kiss I’d ever known.

I’d truly forgotten what it felt like to be with a man who wasn’t wearing protection. It had been that long. But my body remembered, and it accepted Josh willingly.

His pace started slowly, a rocking of our bodies, bringing us together, closer than we’d ever been. We kissed and touched. Our fingers entwined, and I held on to him. My leg wrapped over his, encouraging his body’s motions.

Together we watched him impale me, and it was beautiful to see. I felt oversensitive, as if discerning every line, every ridge on his cock. I listened to the gentle rhythm of our breathing. Our whispered words. Our gentle moans.

Josh drove himself into me, again and again, each push taking me higher. Each thrust coaxing a cry from me. My cunt grasped onto him, unwilling to give him up even for those few precious seconds, the ones he needed to gain momentum to do it yet again. I rolled my hips, meeting him halfway. Together we found our rhythm, and keeping pace with him, I gave myself over to pleasure as Josh made love to me.

I shuddered in his arms, orgasms sweeping over me in waves that were unrelenting. They grew in intensity, coming faster together until they were no longer separate but one long gasp for breath, a single tensing that would have devoured me. But then I felt Josh swell inside me, heard his strangled moan. The rhythm of his breathing accelerated, and his thrusts became frenzied. When Josh threw his head back and growled, pushing as deep as my body would accept him, I felt the first expulsion from his cock. I cried out as he spilled inside me, the feeling so alien and so wonderful I didn’t know if I would recover from it.

Josh kissed my lips, his tongue touching mine in barely a caress. I was full with him and wanted this moment to never end. How I longed for it. This time was so perfect. So right.

“Regina,” he whispered, his mouth still roaming over my face. Little butterfly kisses that made me tingle. “I love you.”

And I didn’t know how to respond.

Chapter Fourteen

I only needed a second to think—just one—to gather my thoughts and answer him. But it must have been one second too long.

Josh’s face tightened. “Did you hear me?”

“I-I did.” Something in me said to respond now. To find my feelings and give him the response he wanted. The one he strained to hear now as he searched my face, his eyes pleading with me.

But I couldn’t stop the doubt from assailing me, taking away every ounce of emotion he’d generated and shoving it behind lock and key.

Josh scrambled away from me. The moment he pulled out, I felt the weight of being without him return. The suffocation of loneliness.

“
Christ
. I knew I should have stayed away, but like an idiot, I gave in.” He used a corner of the bed sheet to wipe the remnants of our coupling from his semi-erect cock. Holding out the soiled cloth to me, he asked, “Why, then?”

I sat up, folding my legs beneath me. “Because…” The words escaped me. “I just…” How to explain to him that in that moment it seemed so right, that I wanted to be close to him, and that was the best way I knew how? There was no way to tell him I wanted to give him those words back, but some part of me looked on his youth and couldn’t see a future together for us. Hours in bed exploring carnal pleasures, yes. A future? No. To me, hearing those three significant words from him meant he yearned for something more. Something I wasn’t sure I could give.

He shook his head. “Never mind.” Without saying anything further at first, he slipped his clothes on. When dressed, he sat beside me on the bed again. Josh took my hand in his, looking into my eyes. “When I think about you, I think about marriage and babies and all the good stuff. And when I came here tonight, when you let me… I don’t know what you want. What do you see when you look at me?”

There was so much expression in those pretty green eyes of his. Looking into them, I believed he really did love me. But when my gaze traveled to the rest of his face, the only thing I could see was his youth. “Twenty-six,” I said softly.

He let out a sigh that broke my heart. Josh cupped my face between his hands, leaned forward and kissed me. A slow, soft press of his lips to mine. “Good-bye, Regina.”

A voice in my mind screamed at me. It cried out it did love him. That we both loved him. That when I looked at him, there was more there than youth alone. There was promise and hope for so much more between us. But the voice wasn’t powerful enough to move my mouth, and so I sat in silence when he walked out of my bedroom. The ethereal light from the hallway had somehow become a shadow, embracing him as I would not.

I didn’t sleep for the rest of the night.

In the morning, I dragged myself, fatigued and bleary, through my early workday rituals. A quick shower, brushing my teeth, donning appropriate attire. Stopping by the coffee maker, already programmed to brew, was instinct. I paused, though, when I spied a glint of metal sitting on the kitchen table. When my brain finally recognized the shine from the key I’d given Josh so many weeks ago, the significance of that simple rejection sinking in, I wanted to cry.

“Is what he did so bad?”

I looked up from my computer screen. My eyes felt as if they housed the desert. Blinking at the weariness in them did little to help. “Who? I don’t follow,” I said to Linda.

“Honey, you’ve been moping around here for almost a week. Whoever had put that smile on your face not long ago is the same person who’s making you lose sleep, I bet.”

The mother-figure in my life knew me too well. Since the day of the ballgame, I’d been miserable. “Not him,” I replied. “Me. I messed it up.”

“Oh? Care to talk more about it?”

At last the tears I’d been holding back for so long filled my tired eyes. “What do you do when a new man makes you forget the love of your life?”

“Patrick?”

Linda fished a tissue from somewhere. I don’t know where. Gratitude filled me when I took it to dry my tearstained face. “I haven’t thought about him in such a long time. Not the way I used to. It used to be when I met a new man, I did an immediate mental comparison to Patrick. If he’s as good looking as Pat, if he’s as funny as Pat, if… What kind of person does that make me to betray him like that?” I wailed.

She waited patiently for my sniffling to settle. Minutes passed before I was able to see her through unblurred vision. “One who’s alive.” Linda passed another tissue to me. “Your husband’s dead, honey. Did you really expect to go through the next fifty years by yourself because he was taken from you? The only way you’d betray him is if you isolated yourself in his name. He’d want more for you.”

“But Josh… He’s not Patrick.”

Linda smiled. The same smile given to slow children. “Of course he isn’t.”

“And he’s young.”

“So?”

“Very young.”

“And again I ask,
so
?”

I blinked this time. Not because of tears hindering my vision but because I hadn’t expected the response. When I blinked again, it was to stall because I didn’t have much of a reply.

“Does he make you happy?”

“Yes,” I answered without hesitation.

“Do you love him?” she asked.

“I do.” My heart jumped a little, and I knew it to be true. Why I didn’t tell Josh in the early hours of the morning would haunt me forever.

Linda stood. “Then I guess I’ll leave you alone to think of a way to un-mess up whatever it is you messed up.”

I barely heard her, for I was already reaching for the phone. Tapping my foot impatiently, I strained to hear the click signaling someone had picked up on the other end. When the ringing stopped and I heard Josh’s recorded voice, my elation flagged a little.

“Josh, please call me,” I said after his voicemail message finished. “It’s Regina.”

I tried once more before the end of the day with the same disappointing results. Linda watched me expectantly over the hours, but I had to give her an ambivalent shrug by way of reply. It wasn’t like Josh to not return my phone call, and that he hadn’t made me wonder about his disappointment. It hurt to think he was so upset he wouldn’t speak to me.

During the drive home, my cell phone sitting next to me, I thought about my indecisive moments over the past few weeks. How did a woman go from accidental voyeurism to finding love? I’d put any excuse available in front of me to keep from confronting Josh. He’d been honest and open with me from the very start. From the day he’d shown himself to me in an exposed moment to this morning when he’d shared his soul, his most vulnerable time with me yet. Either way it was time to stop hiding from him. Whether he chose to accept me or not, I would emotionally strip myself in front of Josh. I would tell him my fears and my hopes. And I would tell him of my love.

I waited for hours for him to come home. Not even to my place but at least to his parent’s house. Every few minutes I stopped by a convenient window facing the street, looking for any sign of his SUV. My heart sped up with each glance because I was sure I’d see the familiar vehicle parked there and I would run to his place. Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore and forced myself to sit on the couch in front of the television.

Some inane sitcom kept me company while my impatience grew. Gritting my teeth, I blew out long exhales and inhaled deep. I didn’t want my frustration to be foremost when I finally saw him. I needed to keep my emotions calm. The ritualistic breathing, deep breaths in and out, slow and controlled—along with days of insomnia—were probably why I fell asleep.

I awoke with a start. Some infomercial played on, my neck shrieking its indignation at my choice of temporary bedding. Every muscle in my body pinged in protest when I stumbled from the couch.

Shit. I hurried to the window and, sure enough, beneath the glare of a street lamp, I spied the Range Rover. For a full minute I pondered going over there, despite the hour. How many times had he visited me in the middle of the night? Then again, if he was angry, the last thing I wanted to do was stoke it by being inconsiderate.

My next choice was to wait until morning and try him then, but if he’d only gone to sleep a few hours ago, chances were good I’d still end up waking him. For everyone’s sakes, then, the best option would be to come back in the early afternoon and confront him once and for all. If I didn’t catch him then, I’d try later on in the evening, again and again until we’d spoken. He still hadn’t returned my calls, not that I blamed him, but the disappointment wasn’t enough to keep me from him.

I got ready for work, an hour earlier than normal, and headed there. The distraction of the office would keep me from going insane as the seconds crawled by.

My elation during the drive kept me buoyed for a boring workday, even one that would be cut short when I left early. I’d slept last night, undisturbed by dreams. I felt rested this morning, and the depression I hadn’t realized had been surrounding me began to fade.