Twisted Up (14 page)

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” she said, leaning her forehead against his.

“It was supposed to be exactly like this,” he said, trying to reassure her. “Now, you’re right. You do need to go. I don’t want you to miss your flight. Your job is important to you, and that makes it important to me.”

“What about after, though?” The worried tone was back in her voice.

“You’ll know what to do, and whatever you decide, I’ll be here to support you.”

At first, she wasn’t sure they were talking about the same thing, but as she stared at those eyes, crystal clear but for the love shining back at her, she realized they were talking about the exact same thing. He was leaving it up to her, the direction or not, of their relationship.

She nodded, and he kissed the tip of her nose before opening his door and helping her down from his lap to the ground. She leaned against the inside of the door and adjusted her skirt and did her best on the wrinkles in her top. She might need to make a few shopping stops once she got to New Orleans. She turned to him in time to see him adjusting his jeans. She hated to see his cock put away. He was gorgeous enough that he should walk around naked all the time.

She giggled at her lusty thoughts. Must be the after-hot-sex-in-the-truck giggles.

He handed her her purse and reached back behind the seats for her laptop and carry-on bag and handed both of those to her as well. “You ready?” He got out of the truck, grabbed her suitcase, and shut the door, locking it behind him.

“Yeah.” She wasn’t really. She didn’t want to leave him, but at the same time, she needed to get away from him. When he was near, it played tricks on her mind and all she wanted was him, day and night, night and day. She needed a break, her body needed a break, her head needed a break, but damn… Leaving him again was hard. Leaving him again without knowing what was going to happen next was hard.

She took one step and another and had just started to take another when a gust of wind blew through the garage. The scent of sex coming from her was stronger than she’d imagined it would be. It was as though he held his come-coated fingers right beneath her nose.

Heat crept up her neck and into her cheeks. She dared a look up at him, and the grin on his face told her that he’d caught a whiff of it too. Damn.

He took her hand. “C’mon, baby. I don’t want anything to delay you coming back to me.”

She didn’t budge when he tugged. He turned to her with a raised brow. The challenge was there in his green eyes, and she hoped there was challenge staring back at him from hers. “Coming
back
to you? I thought you said it was my decision where we went from here?”

“It is your decision.”

“Then why did you assume I’d be coming back to you?”

He tugged and she started walking, her hand firmly clasped in his and though she might be a bit irritated at him, she didn’t want him to let go of her. Not by a long shot. Instead though, for good measure, she huffed out an irritated sigh.

“I wasn’t assuming anything.”

“You said coming back to you. Assuming that that’s what I will decide.” Why in the hell was she fighting him so hard on this? She needed to get her head on straight. Coming back to him was all she did want.

“No. Not an assumption.” His voice was steady with confidence.

“Then what?”

“Hmmm.” He shrugged. “Call it a prediction or a premonition. Call it a feeling in my gut that you will. Call it hope. Call it planting the seed in your head that I want you here with me in no uncertain terms.”

Ella nodded and continued walking with him toward the terminal. Her body, her mind, her heart were already missing him. Not a good sign for clear thinking.

Chapter Eight

Justin fell into bed. He hadn’t even bothered to take his shoes off. He landed face first and diagonal across the mattress. It was damn good to be home.

Three days and three nights of work. He was only a volunteer firefighter, but he worked his ass off around the firehouse with only a few hours’ sleep a day. They’d had two emergency calls two nights in a row. One small house fire, which started because of grease and oil in the kitchen. Luckily no one was injured. It just so happened that there were surprise inspections earlier this morning at the station house too. No one had told him, but then again, that would have negated the surprise part.

Now he was just dead tired. He’d cleaned both fire engines from top to bottom. He hadn’t been with the department for long, only about nine months. He did a lot of the grunt work. While there were a couple of other volunteers and even paid firemen who complained about the cleaning, scrubbing, swabbing, drills and cooking, he didn’t care. He liked the hard work. It kept his body in shape and it kept his mind busy, even if it did wander more than once to Ella.

Ella.

His truck still smelled like her, like the sex they’d had at the airport. His bed still smelled like her too. He took a deep breath and buried his face in the pillow she’d used. He hadn’t been back in the bed since the morning he took her to the airport. He’d loved on her body then, using his hands and his mouth to drive her up one peak and down the other. Her taste stayed with him for hours afterward and his fingertips still tingled whenever he thought about drifting them over her nipples or sliding them deep inside her.

He pulled the pillow tighter, wrapped his arms around the soft cotton and sighed deeply. She hadn’t returned any of his text messages except to say hi and that she’d landed safe. He’d texted her goodnights and good mornings and love yous, but she’d not said anything.

He’d wanted to call on the few occasions he’d had a moment but hadn’t. He knew she needed some space, though from what, he wasn’t really sure. She either wanted to give them a try or she didn’t. She was scared of something, and he wasn’t sure what that something was. He just wanted her to give him a chance to alleviate those fears and settle her down against him.

He wanted her to know she could count on him to care, to give a shit, to keep asking how she was doing, how her day was, if she’d like to come on his fingers, his tongue or his cock.

He wanted to sleep with her, shower with her, eat with her. He wanted to take her up to the bar on trivia night. After his weekly games with her and their friends, he’d come back home and started a night just like it at his own bar. It was a riot, a lot of fun, and he wanted to share that with her. God, he missed those times, those nights that they would laugh until one in the morning, drink beer and get some answers right but most answers wrong.

He wanted to play with her, laugh with her, tease her. He wanted to see the damn bunny slippers beside the bed, and he wanted to fill soup bowls with the coffee she loved and craved so much.

And God, how he missed her gaze on him, that lust on her pretty face, those lips slack with hunger as she looked at him every time he turned around.

He just fucking missed her, and not knowing what in the hell she was thinking was driving him nuts. Again. Tired as he was, he wanted to get in his truck and take himself to the airport, get on a plane and knock on her hotel room door. He wanted to demand an answer from her. He wanted to threaten her with rope and tease her until she said yes. Again. As always, he just wanted her.

“Fuck.”

Rolling over, he sat up and tugged his boots off. His whole body ached. He’d taken a bit of a nap at the firehouse after he’d left the airport on Wednesday, but now he just hurt all over from the physical work. Tomorrow he’d go into the bar and work. He hadn’t been there in almost a week. Good thing he had an amazing assistant manager.

He had to keep busy though. Without her here, without knowing what was going on in her head, what she was planning on doing, he had to keep busy or he’d go stir crazy and go get her. Again. Caveman style. It had worked before, but he doubted it would work a second time.

He got up and stripped his T-shirt and jeans off before he padded to the bathroom and a hot shower. Summer might be coming on, but nothing let loose the aches and pains better than hot water pounding on his back.

He groaned in pleasure as he stepped under the spray and simply stood there for a moment, letting the tension ease, letting the knots get worked out under the massage setting, the jetting pulse of the water. It felt almost as good as an orgasm. Almost.

And that thought had him stroking his semi-hard cock to full hardness and length. He hadn’t come since Wednesday either, not since he’d screwed her in the truck. Being inside her that one time without a condom nearly did him in. He’d come so fucking close to unloading in her, but he knew he couldn’t, not yet, not until they’d come to some understanding, some agreement about the future of their relationship.

His hand on his cock flexed and gripped the shaft tighter, the strokes long and sure. He spread his legs and braced his feet against the inside walls of the shower enclosure, and then he leaned forward and braced his free hand on the wall. The water pounded at the muscles in his lower back and the moan he let go had nothing at all to do with the masturbation of his penis.

Justin closed his eyes and hung his head again, concentrating on the sensations flowing through his body, his mind wandering to Ella and the feel of her in his arms, in his lap, surrounding him in smiles and heated wetness.

He had no idea why he’d fallen in love with her, what it was that had touched him so deeply about her. She was like a fire in his blood and the fact that they’d started out as friends only made him surer than ever that she was right for him, that they were right for each other.

His fingers curled against the tile wall as his orgasm crept closer. His balls started to draw up tight to his body. His fist pulled on his cock harder, faster, working the foreskin over the head. Damn, he loved that feeling just before his sperm erupted from the tip. The all-over tingling. The impending pleasure he would feel from his toes up to his balls, up through his gut and out through his mouth as he groaned, or moaned, or shouted.

Then it was there and his hand was lightning quick over the shaft, his fingers impossibly tight around the hardness. Semen hit the wall and slid to the floor of the shower. Ella’s name was a grunt from his lips, a monologue in his head. He swore he could smell her, could taste her. He needed her. Dear God, he needed her.

He let go of his dick and braced that hand on the tile wall as well and took several deep breaths. If he thought he was tired and worn out before, it was nothing compared to the boneless feeling he had right then.

The bed was calling his name, and he wasn’t going to waste time getting there. He’d send one more text to Ella before he fell asleep and hope there was something from her when he woke up. He didn’t think he could go the rest of the weekend without knowing what in the Sam Hill she was thinking.

Thinking was exactly what Ella was trying not to do. She was failing miserably.

“Clear your mind. Focus on the breath. Breathe in and…breathe out through the stretch.”

Yes. She could do this. She really, really could. She could put Justin out of her mind for the next thirty minutes. She had to. He was all she’d been thinking about for days. And well, she was doing it again now. Crap.

“Lift now and lower into Downward Facing Dog. Heels to the floor. Breathe in and…breathe out through the stretch, feeling your muscles lengthen.”

Ella followed her yoga sequence. It had become as familiar to her as any of her other daily routines. She’d taken up yoga after her separation and had slowly made her way into Pilates after her divorce. She loved the way the stretching made her feel, the change in the shape of her body and the tone that she felt. She’d lost a little weight and in general felt better in a way that other exercises had failed to provide. Yoga and pilates gave her energy, gave her balance, incredible flexibility and helped her to focus.

Usually. Today was not one of those highly focused days. The previous two days hadn’t been any better.

She missed him. She wanted him.

“Knees gently to the floor and lower yourself into Child Pose. Arms stretched in front. Breathe through the stretch. In. Out. Just relax into it.”

She tried. She tried so hard, but it just wasn’t working for her. Her mind was not centered on her exercise. It was centered on a cowboy five hours away. She’d been half in the moment and half daydreaming of the different positions that would make sex even more interesting than it already was with Justin.

Sex. She couldn’t stop thinking about it. She’d been without him for only a couple of days and she wanted him more. She’d gone months without him before, but this time it was different somehow. She could go to him or she could run from him. She was free to make whatever choice she wanted.

And that left her feeling even more uncentered and unbalanced.

The soothing female voice on her yoga DVD, the one Ella usually got lost in as she moved from one pose to another now simply irritated her. It wasn’t that voice she wanted to get lost in. She wanted the deep Texas twang whispering in her ear, to slide over on him, to lift into him, to bend forward for him. She wanted those hands, those arms, that body, that man.

“Crap.”

Ella lifted out of her pose and crawled to her laptop and turned the DVD off. It was no use trying to focus through the rest of it. She’d be better off getting the rest of her stuff together. She had a couple of hours of work to do before she checked out and headed to the airport.

She pushed the eject button on the disc drive, put the disc in its case, and then dropped it into her laptop bag. Her phone beeped at her with an incoming text message on her way to the bathroom for a shower. Before she picked it up, she knew it was him. No one ever texted her except him, and a small smile crossed her lips.

He’d sent her text messages for the last few days, and though she hadn’t responded too much to them, she cherished each and every one. She read them more times than she was sure was healthy, but his words to her meant as much as his actions. She had to make a decision soon about what she was going to do. He hadn’t pressured her or asked. He hadn’t given her any further prodding to choose him. He’d simply told her he loved her, told her hello, told her he was thinking of her.