Very Wicked Things (26 page)

She talked some, and I strained to hear, but it was impossible.

He said, “Yeah, I know. I’ve been coming in late a lot.”

I smiled at him, feeling warm. We had been spending all of our time together.

They talked more, with Cuba doing most of the chatting in a placating tone, asking her how she was and if she wanted anything from the store. I listened, finding it strange.

“Fine,” he agreed tightly over the phone. “I’ll be home by nine. We’ll watch a movie together. Okay?”

He got off the phone, gripping the steering wheel entirely too tight for it to be casual. “Change of plans. Instead of the lake house, let’s do a quick dinner. I’m sorry, but we still have the play to see next week.”

“Why?”

“Mother hasn’t had a good week. She’s been through some things, and I need to spend some time with her.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“She’s sick,” he said, fidgeting.

“I can come with you,” I offered shyly.

He stiffened. “When she gets like this, she just wants family around. Sorry.” But he didn’t sound sorry. He sounded angry.

We headed back into Highland Park and went to Vespucci’s. We ordered quickly, barely talking. I tried to get him to open up more about his mother, but he was tight-lipped and closed off.

After dinner was over, he drove me back to my car at the BA parking lot.

And just no.

I didn’t want that. I’d just found him, and I wanted to be his. I wanted his heart at my feet.

He turned off his car and gazed at me expectantly. “I need to go,” he said sadly.

“Are you sure?”

He didn’t look sure as his eyes caressed my face.

“Stay with me,” I said.

He gazed at me for a long time, searching my face until he finally spoke. “I have something for you.”

“What’s that?”

He reached into the glove box and pulled out a small box, wrapped in soft pink paper with a white bow. I took it gingerly from him, and it fit in the palm of my hand.

“Open it.”

With trembling anticipation I did, gently removing the expensive paper, revealing a cream box. Inside, nestled against white satin was a sterling silver necklace with a glass, tear-shaped pendant on the end. Two glittering white stones—diamonds?—framed the pendant like two little stars. Then I caught on to what was inside.

“Are those dandelion seeds?” I asked in awe, tracing my finger over the glass where the puffy white stalks lay.

“Yeah,” he said. “You mentioned how much you loved them, and, well, I had this idea to put the seeds in a necklace, so you’d always have your wishes right next to your heart.”

“I love it,” I breathed, draping the long chain over my neck, letting it rest in the cleft between my breasts. I laid my hand over it protectively.

His phone pinged, and he stiffened as he checked the sender.

“You gotta go?” I asked.

“I don’t want to,” he said, a torn expression on his face.

“Kiss me instead,” I whispered.

Our lips connected, and the outside world faded, leading us down a path we’d been on since the day he’d sat down at my table. God, yes. I wanted this. Him.

“Come here,” he said after a while, scooting his seat back and then tugging me over the gearshift. The area was hardly big enough to move with his massive body, but I managed to get my knees on either side of him. I lifted my dress up at the hem and slipped it over my shoulders, the soft silk falling to the car floor.

He froze.

I unsnapped my pink lace bra and let my breasts fall out. His eyes got a dreamy look in them. “Dovey?”

I ran a nail down his shirt. “I want to see you naked so I can ride you like a cowgirl.” I immediately blushed at my words.

He grabbed my hands. “What are you doing, Dovey? Explain.”

“I’m giving myself to you. Tonight,” I murmured, grinding my hips on him, making his eyes glaze over. “It’s killing me to not belong to you…body and soul.”

“Fuck,” he said, wide-eyed and panting, until finally, he lunged for me, taking my mouth hard, dragging his hands through my hair, adjusting my head at the angle he wanted.

“Dovey, you make me crazy,” he said thrusting up, rubbing against me in the most delicious way. He said my name over and over in-between kisses as he touched me, his hands ghosting over every inch, touching my legs, the curve of my hips, my face.

“I can’t get enough of you,” he whispered, raining kisses on my neck, dining on my tender places, but inside, I begged him to take it further, and he did, his mouth capturing my hardened nipple. I gasped at the way he held me with one hand, flush against him, while his mouth wreaked havoc on my breasts.

I melted into him like a piece of chocolate on a summer day.

We’d passed the point of no return. I was ready. But was I? Was I? WAS I?

Was I pushing this, hoping to hold on to him?

He fumbled around with the seat and finally, blessedly, we lay back. His hand went underneath the back of my panties, splaying over my ass, and I shivered.

“When you wear that necklace, make a wish for us, that we make it,” he whispered in my ear, and I detected the same need in his voice I felt in my body. He tried to say more, but I shushed him with my mouth, coasting down his chest, my tongue exploring him. All the way down to his defined abs, where I teasingly bit the snap to his jeans. Yes, yes.

His phone pinged again, and I paused, waiting, but he either didn’t hear it or ignored it.

He rose up so he could get out of his jeans and tight boxers. He threw them in the back and breath left me. Wits left me. Naked Cuba made me feel out of control and wild and insatiable.

How would I ever live if he left me?

He tugged me back up to him until I lay against him. He framed my face. “Is this too soon?”

“I trust you,” I said, but that wasn’t true. We needed more time. But I was too afraid of waiting.

“Let me make you feel good,” he whispered, sliding my panties off and finding the most secret part of me with his hands. I whimpered at his attention, at the way he worked me like an instrument, sometimes fast and sometimes slow, using the heel of his hands and his fingers in tandem, making me gasp.

He knew just what to do, and my need grew bigger, my hands more insistent as I clutched his shoulders. I felt myself building to release, my body pulsating in sync with him. I’d come before by my own hand, either in the shower or under the covers in my bed, but nothing like this. Because this was insane, a pounding of my body that screamed for reprieve. Tension made my body tighten, and the edge of the cliff was right there—but it kept slipping away.

Because even though he was gentle and taking care with me, too many questions flitted through my mind. About us. About trust.

“Stay with me,” he said, kissing my shoulder. “Let go. I’ll catch you. Every single time.”

His promise sneaked right into my heart and took up residence. Yes.

And as layer upon layer of heat and fire built up in me until finally, it all came crashing down in a fiery crescendo. My spine snapped back and arched, the undulations racking my body, sending me into an out of control spiral of the best kind.

“I love you,” he cried out, his eyes watching me as I went over, and yes, yes, yes, I believed his declaration. I did. The need, the hunger, the desperation, all of it was there. And my heart soared.

He clutched me to him and I clung, limp, coasting down from my high.

“You said you love me,” I said, my voice trembling, full of wonder.

He pulled me into the crook of his shoulder and rubbed my back. “Did I?”

I slapped him playfully on the chest, and he pretended to be hurt.

“Don’t beat me up. I just gave you a necklace and the best orgasm you ever had,” he teased.

“Cocky much?”

He grinned.

“I could gaze at you for the rest of my life,” I said, my fingertips traversing the thorns and roses up his arms, my lips kissing each one tenderly.

“You can, you know.”

“What?” I said, forgetting the conversation in the wake of his magnificent body.

“Be with me forever.”

My heart stuttered. And I felt…I don’t know…altered. And in the middle of that thought, I decided nothing would come between us again. Not my nagging sense of doom or my jealousy. Because I could see I was the one holding us back. Me and my insecurities.

He loved me. He’d said so.

I had to let go and just trust.

Love is hard to define; it just IS. And, I don’t know why we fell for each other, two people from opposite worlds, but I knew I had to hold on to it, fight for it.

Just like dance. Yes. Like that.

His phone pinged again, and after staring at it for a few seconds, he turned it off.

Coming back to me, he kissed me more, his hands on my shoulders, moving me against his hardness, whispering in my ear that he loved me and how he couldn’t wait to be inside me.

“Make love to me,” I said against his lips, making his fingers dig into my ass. “I don’t need a bed of roses. I just need you. All of you.”

“Are you afraid?” he rasped out, searching my eyes. “I’ve never been with a virgin.”

“I’m not afraid of anything except losing you,” I admitted huskily.

He groaned as I pushed the rest of my inhibitions away and stroked his hard length. I sat up and eased him inside me, inch by inch. He helped me, his hand splayed out across my hip, guiding me. Our eyes connected as he worked inside of me, tentatively at first, but never wavering. He stroked up and stopped, gauging my reactions.

He eased out and came back in, and I waited for pain that never came. I’ve put my body through vigorous training for years, pushing it beyond normal limits, so it was no surprise my hymen was nonexistent.

“Okay?” he gasped.

I nodded, not able to speak.

He arched his back and I relaxed my body, letting the heat and sensation build up again. He shifted himself to get a better angle, pushing deeper inside, filling me up and making me utterly his.

Gazing down at my body pressed against his, he groaned. “You look good on me, Dovey. So perfect.”

Holding my dandelion pendant with one hand, I put the other on the roof of the car, my body not my own, feeling like it was there for him. He took my hips and plummeted me to the edge of the universe and then slowed and brought me back to earth, but then sent me reeling again to the top of the heavens until I crashed back down, feeling undone.

He broke apart, and I watched him lose his sense of where he ended and I began. And I could listen to a million heart wrenching love poems, and none would come close to expressing what I felt for him in that moment.

Not a single one.

“I love you,” I told him as we held each other later. He pushed the hair out of my eyes. “Dovey, you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Never forget that.”

My heart sang.

Time crept by, and we must have fallen asleep, and the tap, tap, tap of the rain against his windshield woke me. I watched him sleep and thought about what we’d done. I’d given my innocence to him, the one thing I’d held on to. I waited for the heaviness to come, the worry that I’d made a mistake but it didn’t. Yeah, we hadn’t used a condom, but we could talk about his sexual history later. The thought of pregnancy didn’t scare me. I was on the Pill already because it helped keep my periods more manageable when it came to performances.

He woke up in gradual phases, stretching out as much as he could in the Porsche and then giving me a tight hug. We embraced without talking, until he checked his watch and then sat straight up.

“Midnight!” he exclaimed, reaching back and grabbing his clothes. “Fuck, I need to get home.” He jerked his shirt on and snapped his pants.

“What’s wrong?” I pulled my dress over my head.

He barely looked at me, his fingers scouring around for his phone. He tapped out some digits, but no one answered. He rubbed his forehead, and then tried again, dialing the number and getting nothing. He kept doing it.

“Your mom?” I asked, but he didn’t respond.

He cranked the car and started backing out of the parking lot.

“Cuba, wait,” I called out. “Let me out. I need my car.”

He came to a stop. “Sorry. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?” He brushed his lips across mine absently.

And fear began to grow. Was he done with me now that I’d slept with him?

No, I couldn’t believe that.

But here’s the thing, he didn’t call the next day. Nor did he call on Sunday.