Unspoken (The Woodlands) (22 page)

Here was the secret of Bo’s success. The outward package drew you in and the layered complexities that seemed at odds with his flighty persona kept you engaged. I wanted to pull back those layers to find out what made him tick.

“I was a troublemaker. I don’t know who was more relieved when I enlisted. My momma or the town.”

“I’m sure it was neither.”

Bo opened his mouth as if to disagree and then shut it. “Do you know why I only do hookups?” His sudden change of conversation topics surprised me.

“No, why?” I sighed.

“Because relationships require work and introspection. I don’t like to spend time inside my head. It’s not a good place.” He fisted his hands and then splayed them out wide. “All any girl has ever wanted from me is to make them feel good for a short time, and I can do that. I want to do that. I’ve fucking perfected that. But the rest—having something real and lasting in my life? No.”

“I got that message over dinner. You’re only here for a good time,” I recited. “But you know, Bo, I’ve heard that you put a lot of effort into romancing the girls, if you want to.”

“What story is this?”

“That you serenaded a sorority girl last year after winter formal.”

“Shit, you must be kidding. The guys at home won’t let me open my mouth when the music is on.”

“So what happened?” I challenged.

“The TKE winter formal was held at a hotel adjacent to a bar where we were drinking. We kind of crashed it. Adam took one of the band member’s guitars during a break and we all sang along.”

“What? That wasn’t what I heard at all. That version is pretty lame, if you ask me.”

He laughed. “Tell me what you heard.”

“I heard you drove over to the TKE house and played ‘If You Love Me’ on a loop from your convertible until the sorority girl came out, with her white dress billowing behind her. Maybe there was a glass slipper left on the stairs. I can’t remember.”

Bo was laughing at this. “First, I don’t have a convertible and wow, I sound like a total douche bag. How is this rumor helping my reputation?”

“It’s not a douche bag move.” I took a sip of my coffee. “It’s totally a Lloyd Dobbler,
Say Anything
move. John Hughes could have scripted that.”

“John Hughes?”

“You know, the moviemaker from the eighties.”

“You weren’t born in the eighties.”

“They’re still teen movies!”

“If I say you’re hot when you’re angry, will you hit me?”

I motioned that I would throw the cup of coffee in his face, which only made Bo laugh more.

“Okay, okay. Sorry. Tell me why this is appealing, because it sounds kind of pathetic to me.”

“I can’t believe you haven’t seen
Say Anything
.” I shook my head in disbelief.

“I’m pretty sure I was too busy killing people in
Call of Duty
to watch that movie.”

“In
Say Anything,
Lloyd Dobbler stands outside his love’s window and holds up a boombox that’s playing their song. In the rain. It’s very romantic.” I held up my arms to mimic the gesture.

He looked at me skeptically.

“It’s a sign of his true love,” I argued.

“I think true love is signified by more than some dippy guy standing outside in the rain playing music for a girl.”

“What’s an act of true love, then?”

“Throwing your body on a grenade so your buddies don’t become pieces of shrapnelized flesh.”

“My God, did you do that in the war?” I was shocked. I’d seen Bo without his shirt on and didn’t recall seeing any marks. Maybe I’d been blind? I shuddered at the thought of him being hurt.

“No,” he sighed, “but I know a guy in a different unit that did.”

“Okay, but that’s not something you could do for a girl here.” I frowned.

“True love means that you’d be willing to sacrifice all for another person.” That was pretty profound. Bo believed that?

“So maybe Lloyd was sacrificing his ego for Dianne in the movie,” I countered.

“Possibly. Still seems like a passive, weak-ass move.” Bo rubbed a finger across his chin and relaxed back in his chair.

“What should he have done?”

“To express his love?”

“Yes!” I exclaimed, leaning toward him. My hands were planted on my legs and I felt poised to jump him, either in frustration or desire.

“Actions speak louder than words. Or singing, as the case may be.”

“He was out there, in the rain.”

“But he wasn’t doing anything. You show a woman you love her by what you do for her, from opening her door to making sure that bumps in the road of life are smoothed out. That she wants and worries for nothing. That when you think about sex, it’s her face in your fantasies, her body you’re touching, her lips you’re kissing. That every day you remind her that she’s the first thought in your mind when you wake up and the last thought before you drop off to sleep.”

“Oh.” To hear Bo express something so romantic in his own way made me kind of delirious. I could only manage a sound of acknowledgment. This wasn’t the sentiment of a guy who wanted only a series of emotional physical encounters.

“Yeah, oh.” Bo straightened in his chair and the humor of the moment seemed like a long distant memory. He held out his hands in supplication. “I’m a bad bet, Sunshine, but if you’re willing to give me a whirl around the ring, I’m yours. Because you’ve got me so twisted up inside that I barely know if up is down. I’m so inside my head that I’m coming out of my asshole. Have mercy on me.”

I took a shaky breath and stared at him. Maybe he was
too
good at persuasive speech, but all my reasons for saying no seemed to have evaporated. Right there in the coffeehouse, I melted into him and his arms came crashing around me so tight I thought he might squeeze me until I burst. But what a way to go. His embrace was like being folded against a tree, strong and straight and rooted deep. The winds of winter could buffet us, but Bo would keep me warm and protected.

“Holy shit, Sunshine. Your hesitation was about two seconds too long,” he breathed into my hair.

I giggled. “I didn’t even pause.”

“You did. But that’s okay. I’m going to make it so good for you,” he promised.

“You better. All those stories you’ve told and I’ve been told about you—they’re giving me big expectations,” I sassed.

“They were all practice for the real thing. You.”

“That’s a pretty good line,” I told him, uncertainty creeping in again.

“I’m going to tell you something.” Bo reassured me, as if sensing I was tottering on the edge again. “I’m scared, too, but neither of us are going to get what we want if we don’t take a chance.”

“I want to take this chance with you,” I admitted.

I’d just done either the stupidest thing in my life or the smartest.

Chapter Eighteen

AM

W
E
DROVE
STRAIGHT
TO
MY
apartment for the sole reason that it was closest to us. Bo told me not to talk and to sit on my side of the car with my hands in my lap.

“If you touch me, I’m pretty sure I’m going to wreck the car,” he explained, after giving me my orders. I didn’t tempt him because I wasn’t sure that if I started, I would care if the car was wrecked.

Once we were inside my bedroom, his lips were on mine before I could open my mouth. Every kiss I’d experienced before had been innocent compared to this. From the first lick of his tongue against my lips, this kiss conveyed bone-deep want. Bo’s mouth was hot and wet upon mine. He ravaged me, biting and sucking on my lips, his tongue seeking out every crevice and surface until I felt as if he were consuming me.

Bo lifted my legs around his hips, and I wrapped myself around him. With one hand under my butt, he used his other to push up my shirt up to expose my bra. The sheer strength it took to hold me up like this took my breath away and shot a bolt of excitement straight to my core. I whimpered with need.

He shushed me and bent his head to lick between my breasts, pulling down one lacy cup with his teeth to suckle hard on my nipple. I clutched his head to my chest so tightly I was sure I was suffocating him, but I didn’t care. By the way he pressed in tighter, he didn’t seem to mind.

My legs were splayed open, but I wasn’t getting enough relief. I canted my hips upward and wiggled against him, trying to find relief for the ache between my legs. In answer, Bo’s hand left my breast and went to the juncture of my legs. Through the denim and the lace of my panties, I could feel his hand, but this sensation only made me want a closer, stronger touch. Bo undid my snap and my zipper, grunting his disapproval.

“You should wear a skirt, always,” he instructed, lowering me onto the bed and pushing my jeans down just far enough so that he could insert his hand between the denim and my flesh. He braced one hand on the side of my head and held his body suspended over mine. I didn’t reply. I was too busy feeling. Feeling his mouth, his stroking tongue. Feeling his hands, his seeking fingers.

There was only one thought in my mind:
How can I get closer to him?.
He began rubbing me in circles, and I pushed up against his hand, frustrated by the restraint of my jeans. His fingers dipped inside me, and I couldn’t stop a moan from escaping me. “Oh God.
Bo.
”

“I love that you’re so wet for me.”

I shivered, the pulse of my blood drumming so loudly in my ears I could barely hear him. He pressed the heel of his palm hard against my pelvis bone and his two fingers began a slow thrust inside me. I was dying, one infinitesimal centimeter at a time.

“So hot. Tight. Can’t fucking wait to be inside you.” Bo’s words were more grunts than complete thoughts. I understood. I had no ability to form complete sentences either. My sole focus was on the slick between my legs caused by the movement of his fingers thrusting in and out and the abrasion of his palm, rough and calloused against my sex. “I want to stay inside you for hours. Live here.”

All my nerve endings reached for something and then, like an explosion, sensation rushed down to my center and detonated. I was grateful to be lying down, because my legs felt like noodles, and I could only see sparkles of light.

Bo kept his hand firmly against me, drawing out as many shudders and shocks from my body as he could, and when I finally came down off my high, he withdrew his hand. He wiped his fingers on the sweatshirt that he’d discarded upon entering the room and applied soft soothing kisses on my lips, cheek and jaw. The hand that had caressed my core now moved in long strokes up and down the side of my body. I drew him down on top of me, wanting to feel his delicious weight press mine into the mattress.

As I felt his insistent erection against my stomach, I knew I wanted to give him the same pleasure, have him under my thumb just as he’d overpowered me with emotion and need. Bo pushed upright and lifted the heavy fall of my hair aside as I slid off the bed to kneel in front of him. “You don’t need to do this.”

I pressed my hand against his thighs and stared up at him. “I want to.”

The button had already come undone and I unzipped his jeans. Underneath he was completely nude, and his heavy cock fell forward, free of its constraints. I pressed my face into his hair and rubbed my cheek against the soft skin of his erection. It bobbed against my cheek. He smelled of male sweat and musk. I licked his skin between his leg and crotch and tasted the delicious salty flavor. His leg buckled, and Bo readjusted, bracing one knee against the bed, one hand hard against my shoulder. With his free hand, he stroked my hair tenderly.

I rained soft kisses down the hard length of him and licked the top softly. There was a spot of liquid on the tip and I lapped it up. Bo groaned, and the hand in my hair turned to a fist as he tightened his hold. His hips moved forward, as if wanting to be deeper inside, but he asked for nothing, waiting for me to set the pace.

I’d never enjoyed this in the past, but with Bo it felt natural and good. I inhaled his smell, felt the crisp hairs against my nose as I bent forward. Everything about this felt right. His shaft was thick on my tongue. I could hear him panting; it seemed as if he were breathing harder now than he had during the fight. I ran my tongue over the ridge as I mouthed him.

Bo reached along my arm and grabbed my hand. He brought it up to his shaft and wrapped my hand around the base. He moved his hand in short, hard movements, in the same rhythm as my mouth. It was unbearably exciting to have him touching himself over my hand. Under my hair, his other hand palmed the back of my head, providing support. When I’d gotten the gist of the movement he wanted, he brought his hand up from his cock and stroked my cheek, feeling the hollows as I sucked and pumped.

I could feel his balls tighten against the back of my hand as I twisted and pumped like he showed me. As I could feel his release coming, Bo pulled out of my mouth.

“Don’t you…”

“No, I want to finish inside of you.”

I dabbed my finger on the tip and tasted his pre-come.

“Jesus.” He gave a small rueful laugh. “Are you trying to kill me?”

“It doesn’t taste bad. Kind of salty.” I looked up at him. “I wouldn’t have minded if you came in my mouth. I thought that’s what guys like.”