Play Fling (A Stupid Cupid Book) (22 page)

He withdrew, returned. Another wave hit
her.

“Open your eyes, baby,” he said.

She obeyed. Slow and methodical, the
intensity in his gaze growing, her body crashed around him. Again
and again, Brooke gasped and moaned until the last sprays of
pleasure left her. Elliott slowed, then began to move faster,
harder. He closed his eyes. He stopped.

New need blossomed within her. His cock
pulsed. Brooke squeezed her legs around him, “Not yet. I need
more.”

So close, so very, very close and she would
come again. One lift, one press. She glided away and back. Her eyes
and her hands gripped his shoulders. She bit against his salty
flesh. All the sweet sensations gathered inside of her, coiling
closer, tightening. Elliott licked the sensitive spot behind her
ear. “You feel so damned good, Brooke.”

His deep, throaty voice sent shivers over her
skin. Climax burst through her in a bright, hot flash. She moaned
his name, abandoning to pure ecstasy. Wave after wave radiated
through her, deeper and longer than before. Mindless to anything
beyond his body inside of hers.

Elliott drew out every last spasm from her
body. Then he drove one hard, deep stroke into her. His cock
throbbed. He arched and delved his hips so deep, Brooke cried out.
He came, throb after throb, into her, filling her with primal
satisfaction.

The minutes trickled by, and by the time
Brooke’s heart resumed a normal rhythm, Elliott lay asleep next to
her. Brooke watched him, amused. She supposed it was his turn to
pass out. A stream of sunlight cast a line across his waist. Dust
danced in the light. Quiet blanketed the room, broken only by the
rustle of sheets when she shifted, a muffled spring from the
mattress expanding. The sounds of his sleep.

Should she wake him? Ask him to go? She
certainly couldn’t be offended when she’d done the exact thing not
so long ago. She wouldn’t be writing any cryptic note, though.

Questions spun in her head, but she
suppressed them all. Wanting to know meant asking, and asking meant
answers she might not like. She wanted to keep this as simple as
possible. Let him sleep. He was going to need more energy. Because,
though she refused to lose her heart, her body was another matter
entirely.

Chapter Seventeen

Elliott had never spent this long in bed with
any woman. Brooke lay next to him, drifting off, glowing from what
he gave her again. He let his eyes rove over her. Hours in bed,
maybe, but not days. Never longer than a day, with a bit of morning
thrown in, and that had only been once. He and Brooke had spent
days in bed. Under the covers, crawling over each other like
kittens in a basket. They ate, they showered, they went back to
bed. They made out.

They made love.

When they weren’t making love, they talked.
Make that, he talked. She listened. Intently, too. She nodded and
knit her forehead up and scrunched her chin. She asked questions.
Good, specific questions like, “Why are you and Gordon so close?
Were your mothers close?”

Yes, she’d remembered from Thanksgiving,
their mothers were sisters. (Aha! She
had
been paying
attention.) “Gordon and I were always friends before cousins,
though.” And he’d explained.

Elliott had been a gangly, quirky kid. He’d
be nosed inside a book while his brothers were scaling sap-ridden
trees or carving bikes down treacherous dirt hills. When they
weren’t ditching him, they were bullying. Not an easy boyhood.
Picked on by an older and a younger brother, he’d always been the
closest with his mom. She was the only one who he wasn’t
self-conscious with.

Until Gordon came around, and that was pretty
often. He stood up for Elliott. The bad odds became evened. Matt
and Cyrus had to fall back on verbal abuse rather than wet willies
and digging noogies.

“How?” Brooke had asked.

“Well, Cy, he’s my younger brother, is a
master at insults, but with Gordon around, the odds were evened.”
Even their insults failed. No one could throw a verbal jab like
Gordie. He’d been more chubby than big, and took enough crap at his
school that his cousins couldn’t keep up.

His size helped, plus, Gordon understood
Elliott the same way his mom did.

Gordon didn’t sit around and read with him,
though. He dragged him outside instead. But not to trounce the yard
or skid their knees. They didn’t have to get rough to have
outstanding fun. They sailed the sea, pirated treasure, invaded
space, uncovered secret tombs. Boys being boys, but with
imagination instead of arm-wrestling.

Brooke laughed at all the funny parts. Funny
like when Elliott and Gordon tied tampons to Matt’s dirt bike and
he’d ridden the whole day without noticing. And only noticed when
Cindy Montanga asked what they were, all grossed out. “We even
colored them red. Bright, blood red.”

Brooke let her guard down at one point.
“Every time I went toilet papering, I chickened out. My friends and
I would dress all in black and wear hats and then sneak around the
neighborhood, but never actually do anything. What geeks!”

Elliott laughed. “Never were a bad girl,
huh?”

“Nope.” She laughed, too. “Good girl through
and through.”

Until now.

He laughed even harder when she went so far
as to advise him on the best way to fake blood for a pad or tampon.
“The trick is to make it brownish. Chocolate is excellent and you
can really gross a person out if you want to. My sister was a
master at it.”

“What’s your sister like?”

With a shrug, Brooke closed back up.

She didn’t share much else and most of what
he told her wasn’t very sexy. Even so, it didn’t get in the way of
rolling over and kissing her senseless. Sweaty and tired, he could
still tell her more.

About his mom. How much he missed her. How
ugly her death was. A horrific ending for such an amazing person.
She was the kind of mom that would set up a new toy in the living
room, waiting there for you after school. Not because he’d begged
her for it or because Christmas was too long a wait. She did it
just to see the look on his face when he saw it.

One time, she got Matt, his oldest brother,
an erecter set no one else had. He was a nut for them. Matt had
just about peed his pants when he’d seen it. The thing had probably
hit the shelves that morning. Matt always loved to build things up
just so he could break them down after.

And Brooke had kissed his forehead then. She
didn’t have to talk to tell him things, though. He’d figured plenty
out on his own. She hated doing laundry, but was otherwise ultra
clean. Clean and organized. Her spare toothbrushes were lined up
like soldiers. Her sheets had hospital corners. Or used to. Now
they lay in rumpled carnage.

Most important of all, Gordon was right. She
didn’t know Jason was gay. He doubted Brooke suspected, either.
Meanwhile, Gordon was anxiously waiting for Jason to get the guts
to come out. Brooke asked about Gordon like he was Jason’s business
friend who just happened to be his cousin. Like, hey, small world.
Leaving the gay parts out of Gordon stories hadn’t been easy, but
he’d done it. Just in case. Cagey as she’d been with this affair so
far, he wasn’t going to be the one to tell her. Something like that
had to be damaging on a woman’s self-esteem.

He wanted to see her again. He had to be
careful not to screw it up. She’d already laid down specific rules
for the game. Sex, sex, sex. Some cuddles. No sharing. No leaving
his toothbrush behind. No strings. Keep it simple.

She’d relaxed the no cuddle rule pretty
quickly, though.

Elliott was all for simple. No strings meant
no tangles. No more Brooke knots. Simple would be a nice change of
pace. In his experience, women were anything but.

As they say, though, all good things must
end. By Wednesday, he couldn’t deny it any longer. He needed to go
home. He’d called in sick Tuesday, but he couldn’t do it again
today. Shope would go mental. Besides, Brooke was beginning to get
fidgety.

Her eyes fluttered open. She caught him
watching her. Elliott bent and kissed her shoulder, not about to
feel bad for staring when she was so delectable. With a weak smile,
Brooke got up and donned her clothes. She probably had things to
do. Overstaying wouldn’t do. He just wished he could shake the
feeling she’d say goodbye and mean it.

Elliott pulled on his jeans, not sure how to
ask when he’d see her again. No, that wasn’t true. Asking was easy.
Facing the answer, however….

“What are you up to today?” he asked.

Brooke sat at her desk and grabbed a
highlighter. “Work stuff mostly. You?”

The highlighter squeaked over the sheet of
morning paper. Classifieds.

“Work stuff. Shope has got a load for me to
do. And with finals coming, it’s crunch time.”

She set down her paper. Her nose wrinkled up.
“Finals.”

He wanted to close the three feet between
them and kiss the tip of it. He rubbed his neck instead. “Yeah,” he
continued. “Time to shine. Shope’s review could make the difference
in the teaching fellowship I applied for.”

“A teaching fellowship? Impressive.”

“Hopefully. Once I complete my dissertation,
with some experience maybe I can land a professorship, then
eventually, tenure.” Her cat, Sampson, hopped into his lap. Elliott
scratched the purring feline behind the ears. If he could just find
a way to lead into the question. “You know, I don’t really grade
Shope’s papers.”

The highlighter tip thudded. Brooke quickly
capped the pen. “You don’t?”

First, tell her what he did at work, then she
could tell him what she did for work. He could steer the
conversation into days off and ask, ‘when can I see you again?’
“Well, I do and I don’t.”

She straightened and crossed her leg. “What
does that mean, exactly?”

“Shope has me offer a detailed analysis of
each paper’s strengths and weaknesses, suggest the grade I would
give them if I were the instructor, and justify why.” He pulled his
shirt on. “I used to think he went with what I suggested, but
nowadays, I kind of think he doesn’t.”

Brooke looked away. She adjusted the paper.
“So, you’re saying Shope gives the final grade. Not you?”

“Yes.” Where was his brilliant transition to
talking about her job again? “I’m a little behind because of
yesterday. But, I think I’ll be done by Saturday.”

She leaned flirtatiously back in her seat.
“So, you’re saying I should have spoken to Shope about my
grade.”

No, no, no. Not Shope. Saturday. Get her back
on work and the weekend. “Technically, yes.”

“So much for sleeping my way to the top,”
Brooke teased.

“Do I get any points if I say I’ve put in a
good word for you?” He gave her his best James Dean. “More than
once?”

Brooke grinned mischievously, but narrowed
her eyes. “A good word, huh? Was that before or after you hit on
me?”

Sampson meowed in protest as Elliott stood up
and stretched. “Hmmm. Let me think.” Hair all mussed, make-up gone,
he wanted to pick her up and toss her back into the bed. And stay
there for another week. He knew he couldn’t. “After. Definitely
after.”

Brooke rose and playfully socked him in the
shoulder. He caught her fist and tugged her close.

“Tell me, really,” Brooke said, pouting
prettily. He liked this minx side of her.

He kissed the tip of her nose. Her freckles
brought out her eyes somehow. “Tell you, really?” The kind of truth
she wanted about her writing wasn’t going to secure him a solid
date to see her again. “Really, really?”

She nodded but something in her eyes warned
him. Don’t go there. Not yet.

“To be honest, I’d have to go back and
check.” He wanted to bury his nose into her hair and memorize the
flowery scent. “Keep in mind, I didn’t know your name from Adam two
papers ago.”

She nodded again, but didn’t look the least
bit satisfied.

“I can tell you this,” he said, pleased at
the wide-eyed hope his words created. Now to just get that reaction
about Saturday. “I know Shope scored you lower than I recommended
on the last one.”

“He did?” Her teasing tone changed to one of
curiosity.

“Yep. And I think I’ll get through this round
of papers by Friday.”

“Uh-oh.” Her breath hissed out. “Do we need
to keep this secret from Shope? And, oh my gosh, I never thought
about how you would grade me after all this. You’re not going to
suddenly give me overly rave reviews, are you?”

He couldn’t help chuckling. “Whoa. Slow down.
Why would I tell Benson Shope about my personal life? And, I’m a
professional. I’ll give him the same honest feedback I always do. I
have to. He’d see right through it and I need him to respect my
work.”

She bowed up at him and shrugged. “You could
give me a little extra. You know, a little thank you present?”

His chuckle shot to a full on chortle of
laughter. He adored it when she flirted. Granted, he’d always known
there was more under the surface, but this, this was priceless. How
many people got to see this side of her? He played along, feeling
his chances for the weekend improving. “A thank you present? For
what?”

The clock ticked, though. A pang stuck in his
gut thinking about leaving her.

“For mind blowing sex, of course,” she
said.

“Oh, that. Speaking of that, when do I get to
have my mind blown again?” Nice, Elliott. Very nice, if he did say
so himself. Smoothness itself.

Brooke kissed his chin and pulled away. The
air rapidly chilled to all business and no pleasure. Damn it.

“I can’t see you this weekend.” Least she had
the grace to act disappointed.

He understood. Or, he’d have to. He wouldn’t
push her. She’d already reared her skittish side enough; he knew
better than to push. “Alright.” His voice cracked.