Misty Reigenborn Romance Boxed Set (9 page)

She awoke late the next morning, stretching lazily.

She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror by the closet and groaned.

She looked like hell.

Her hair was a mess.  Her lips were still slightly puffy from the frenzied kissing of the night before.  She had a light hickey above her left breast; one that she had little recollection of him giving her.   Her mouth tasted terrible from the cigarette she'd smoked the night before.

She groaned, remembering that one of the reasons she'd quit smoking was that she'd wake up with her mouth dry as hell the nights after she'd smoked too much and the taste in her mouth was absolutely revolting.

She went into the bathroom, using the toilet and washing her hands. She splashed water on her face and helped herself to a capful of the mouth wash beside the sink, rinsing her mouth and spitting into the sink.

Kimber made a face at herself in the mirror, smoothing her hair back.  She had gone back into the bedroom in search of her clothes, when he walked in with a sexy grin, wearing a pair of faded jeans that hung low on his hips

"Mornin' beautiful.” He gave her a quick kiss.

"Morning," she said lightly, fighting with the clasp of her bra.

He reached around to help her.  She almost moaned at the feeling of his hands on her back. If he did this to her now, she thought, what would it be like after another night together?

"You really are beautiful.”

"You aren't so bad yourself.” She stepped into her panties, which she'd found hanging off of the wastebasket.

"When I woke up this morning and saw you sleeping in my bed, I thought that I could easily imagine waking up beside you every morning.” And then his mouth was on hers again.

Damn she thought as he pulled back, he was already thinking about a commitment?

It seemed so fast, and the thought of rushing into another relationship almost turned her stomach.

But as she looked up at him, standing in his bedroom barefoot, clad in only an old pair of jeans, all bad boy charm, she could easily imagine herself waking up beside him every day, too.

The thought brought an odd sense of comfort.  Not the nagging sense that she'd always tried to ignore when she was with Orlando, the feeling that she was always waiting for the other shoe to drop, that it had been inevitable for her to find him in bed with someone else.

The thought of a relationship with Luke was thrilling, and sex was only a part of it.

As he took her hand and led her towards the kitchen, she knew that she would let nature take its course.  She couldn't let this one get away.

Chapter 15

Sierra

Sierra sat up in bed, moving her sleeping boyfriend's arm off of her with a groan as she looked at the clock beside the bed.

"Damn it.”

The alarm had failed to go off yet again.  She had little more than half an hour to get to class and Paul had the same to get to work. "Paul, wake up." She nudged him with her bare foot as she climbed out of bed. "The damned alarm clock didn't go off. I told you you needed to get a new one."

He cracked open one beautifully blue eye and mumbled. "Hmm."

"Shit.” She reached out to shake him more fully awake. "Alarm clock," she said, as he pulled her down to him. "Work, school, late."

He sat up, giving her a kiss so wonderful that she was able to forgive his morning breath.

She pulled away from him, reaching for a cigarette.

"Sierra." He glared at her as he watched her light up. "You said you were going to quit."

“Tomorrow, love," she said breezily as she rummaged in the dresser for clothes. The cigarette was clamped in the corner of her mouth as she pulled on panties.

"You always say that."  He sighed, reaching to pull a pair of slacks out of the closet.

"Yeah." She fastened her bra. "But I'd be as uptight as you if I quit now.”

"Bitch.” He shook his head at her as he tightened his belt.

"Ooh testy this morning, aren't we?” She reached out to ruffle his hair. "You know you love me the way I am."

"That's not the point. It's bad for you and it stinks."

"Then I'll smoke outside.”  She stepped into her shoes.

"Again, not the point. I don't want you to end up with lung cancer before we get the chance to get married."

She rolled her eyes at him, bristling a little at his mention of marriage.

Granted, she'd been living with him for two months. Though she told herself it was as much for convenience as anything else.  His roommate had moved out unexpectedly.  Considering the fact that they spent most of their time together, it had made more sense for her to move from her dorm to his place instead of to the house that she'd been living in with friends over the summer months. She hadn’t wanted to return home because of her job and the fact that while she'd forged a somewhat better relationship with her mom and stepfather; she still didn’t want to be under their roof during the long hot summer months.

"I said I'll quit and I will. Eventually.”  She grinned.

He threw his pillow at her.  She ducked, letting it fall harmlessly to the floor beside her.

She stepped over to him, running her hands over his muscular arms as she pulled his head down to hers for a kiss, sucking his tongue lightly in the way that she knew drove him crazy.

"By the way.”  She headed toward the bathroom to brush her teeth and her hair. "You really need to brush your teeth."

He scowled at her, his blue eyes behind the frames of his wire rimmed glasses full of fire.

She always told him that he should get contacts with his gorgeous eyes, but he told her that with his blonde surfer boy looks that no one would take him seriously without them. She supposed he was at least partly right. He looked like such a jock, that without knowing him it was hard to take him seriously.

But once you got to know him, or spent any more than a few minutes talking to him, you realized that while he was athletic, he was no jock and he was far from dumb.

Paul was serious, sometimes Sierra found him to be altogether too serious.  Like this morning, she thought as she watched him spit toothpaste into the sink.

She was glad that since it was summer, her class was only part of a CPR course that she figured she'd have to get around to taking eventually if she wanted to work with kids.

He was on his way to work at the sporting goods store that his uncle managed.

"You know I love you right?"

"Of course.” She grabbed her purse.

"Even if you are a pain in the ass."

She pinched his as he reached for his car keys. "If you really want to know what a pain in the ass is, I think I could be persuaded to spank you."

"Sierra. Sometimes you have a strange sense of humor."

"Ugh.” She dug her car keys out and put the strap of her purse over her shoulder. "And sometimes you really are a prude Paul.” She made a face at him.

"I'm not a prude. I'm not into being kinky."

"Spoil sport," she shot at him as he locked the door of their two bedroom apartment. She'd been a little afraid when he'd first asked her to move in that though they'd been sleeping together for a while, he'd planned on her sleeping in the other bedroom instead of his.

But to her relief, he'd cleared out half of the closet and the dresser, clearly expecting her to share his room.

He stuck his tongue out at her as he unlocked his car.  She bit back a teasing reply of better things he could do with his tongue.  She knew he wouldn't appreciate it. He waved at her as he pulled out of the parking lot, calling out the window "I love you."

"I love you, too." She said though she knew that he couldn't hear her.

Sierra was glad that her class was short and that she didn't have to work that day, as she found herself a bit cranky after her exchange with Paul that morning.

She returned home a little after eleven planning to eat an early lunch, then maybe surf the net for a while. She wanted to see if she could catch up with Ashley who'd transferred to another school the last semester.

She made herself a sandwich, not really tasting it as she half listened to the radio that was playing softly in the kitchen.

She glanced at the closed door of the spare bedroom that Paul had turned into a mini gym, figuring that it probably wouldn't hurt her to work out for a while.

She patted her not quite so flat stomach and sighed, thinking that she wasn't in the mood.

She wasn't in the mood to do anything really, she figured as she lay on their bed, the early afternoon light creeping through the blinds.

As she lie there, her head snuggled into Paul's pillow as she loved the fresh clean scent of the cologne he used, her mind drifted back to the first time they'd had sex.  It had been almost laughable. They'd been going out for three weeks at the time.  She'd invited him over to the rental house that she was sharing with Ashley and another girl that summer. She had set out to get him drunk and seduce him as she was feeling, well, she had been feeling rather horny.

She'd pulled the bottle of cinnamon schnapps out of the freezer.  At first he'd refused to drink with her at all, as they were both under age, she being twenty and he being nineteen, but she'd finally convinced him to take a drink.

She'd had quite a pleasant buzz going on and thought that it would be as good a time as any to lead him upstairs to her bedroom.

It hadn't helped that she'd stumbled on the stairs and would probably have fallen if he hadn't been behind her.

She'd rid herself of her clothes.  He'd stared at her as if astonished that she'd do such a thing.

She'd pulled him to the bed and started kissing him. She could tell he was into it.  She'd felt the erection pushing against his khaki shorts, but he'd balked when she'd tried to remove them, telling her that things were going a little fast.

She'd been angry then, and had been reaching for her clothes when he'd stopped her, pulling her to him for a kiss that was somehow less than passionate, though she could tell he still had an erection.

He'd let her remove his clothes then, but had seemed almost uncomfortable as she'd put on the condom for him, as he was moving way too slow for her by that point.

She’d told herself that he was obviously into it.  Hard ons don't lie, but it had almost seemed like a pity fuck.  As he'd kissed her goodbye that night she'd thought that it was a more final goodbye and hadn't expected to hear from him again. He had called her again, though by that point she'd decided that she'd let him make the first move when it came to sex.

He'd made her wait another three months and had asked her for permission to make love to her.

It had all been so weird.  Though she was certainly glad that he no longer asked her for her permission to make love to her, Paul was still so uptight about sex that it drove her crazy.

And she didn't understand it. Well, she understood partly.  He'd explained to her that he'd been painfully shy around girls in high school. The only girlfriend he'd had had given him an STD.  She was screwing half the football team.  But she figured he should have gotten over all of that by now.

He was so serious about everything, sex included, that it bugged the hell out of her.

She'd never met a man who took sex so seriously.

Granted, she didn't have a lot of experience. There had only been Austin who had been so full of adolescent lust that he'd hurried her through every encounter, completely forgetting to take her pleasure into account. And the one night stand she'd had when she'd finally let Ashley drag her to a party near the end of their freshman year, with some guy whose face she couldn't remember and whose name she wasn't sure she'd ever known she'd been so damn drunk.  And there was Luke of course.

Luke, who had seemed to take nothing seriously at first only to turn into a wannabe family man.  But damn the sex had been good she thought, especially the makeup sex those last few weeks before she'd left.

They'd argue over nothing.  Neither bringing up what they were really feeling, but the sex afterwards was so good that they forgot all about it anyway.

She sighed as she reached for a cigarette, already forgetting her promise of that morning to Paul that she wouldn't smoke inside and her promise to him when she'd first moved in that she'd never smoke in bed.

What was it with men and this whole marriage thing she thought?  Weren't women supposed to be the ones who yearned for the whole picture perfect family life?

She liked kids well enough of course, as she planned to make her career working with them. She just couldn't picture herself as a mother or a wife.

She was young.  While she still wasn't the type to screw indiscriminately, her one night stand with whatshisname non withstanding, she didn't have that yearning to settle down. She wasn't commitment phobic as she was in her third long term relationship, if what she'd had with Austin could really be counted, she was marriage phobic.

Paul had brought up the subject, this morning for instance, and though he brought it up casually, she knew that he expected their relationship to make what he considered a natural progression that would end in marriage and a family.

While she loved him because he was smart, funny, thoughtful and kind, and had a surprisingly witty sense of humor when he decided to show it not to mention how gorgeous he happened to be; and he was certainly steady and reliable, she wished that their sex life was a little bit more exciting or spontaneous.

They'd gotten into the habit of having sex twice a week, which seemed to happen on Saturday nights as Sunday was the day off that they shared together and Tuesday nights.  Wednesday was her other day off.

She almost felt like they were an old married couple already, planning their sex life around kids or activities that didn't exist yet.

She yearned for the carefree have sex when the urge hits you, not when you don't have to work the next morning, easiness that she'd shared with Luke.

She'd felt her thoughts drifting to him quite a bit lately.  Wondering when she heard a new song on the radio if he'd been the one that had written it.  Wondering what he was doing now, who he was with or sleeping with more like.

She almost wished that she'd accepted his proposal, as the idea of marriage loomed with Paul anyway.

She shook her head at herself as she stubbed out her second chain smoked cigarette.

He'd been the one that had left without saying goodbye.  Yes, her inner voice nagged at her, right after you spat in the face of his proposal, when he was trying to give you what you'd asked him for two months before, begged him for really.  She sighed as she glanced at the clock, deciding to take a nap before her late afternoon doctor's appointment.

What she really wanted wasn't Luke at all, right?  What she wanted was for Paul to loosen up and for a little spice in their positively vanilla sex life.

Yet when she fell asleep, it was Luke she dreamed of. She woke up sweaty at a little after two, remembering vaguely that she'd dreamed of running out of a lavishly decorated church where she was marrying Paul, right into Luke's arms.

She glared at herself in the mirror as she reached for a cigarette, thinking idiot, and lay back on the bed smoking.

She sprayed the room liberally with air freshener when she'd finished. She thought that maybe it would cover up the smell enough that Paul wouldn't yell at her when he got home, for smoking in their bedroom instead of the living room or the kitchen like he'd asked.

It amused her that he'd rather have her smoke in the kitchen where they cooked; or he mostly cooked, than in the bedroom.  But she'd been pretty good about abiding by his wishes, most of the time.

It was a mercifully short trip to the clinic, as she only went in for birth control. She was home by four and had an hour or so to herself before he got off of work at five. She thought briefly about cooking dinner then decided against it, as her attempts to make anything more than sandwiches usually ended up with the blare of the smoke detector.  She figured that Paul would appreciate Chinese takeout more than he'd appreciate whatever she would make or burn to a crisp more like.