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“Speaking of hard, what are you doing? Exactly.”
“Stroking myself, fast. Pretending it’s your hand in my parents’ bathroom. Imagining you’re behind me, whispering in my ear. I can smell you, your soap and your perfume. It reminds me of being outside, in the barn. The smells of hay, earth, and fresh, clean air. Everything so sharp and crisp. That scent’s inside me even when you’re not around. If I breathe in right now, you’re there. Always.”
She bit her lip but it wasn’t enough to quiet her moan. “My thumb’s on my clit, my fingers inside. But it’s your hand. You should be quieting me when I cry out, not this pillow. When I bite it, it’s your shoulder I’m sinking my mouth into. Your back I’m raking my nails down.”
“Harder. Deeper. Take me with you.” He sounded guttural. Urgent. “Make me believe you’re in this bed with me, that neither one of us is alone tonight.”
Vicky complied, flexing her hand as she drove into herself again and again. Her climax hit her so rapidly that she couldn’t warn him, couldn’t even tell him it was happening. All she could do was gasp his name and jerk her fingers in and out while her moisture soaked her fingers.
She’d just slumped into her pillow when he made his own choked sounds of release. She shuddered as if they
were her own, absorbing them with a kind of dizzy elation that sent aftershocks spinning through her once again.
His unsteady breaths lulled her into oblivion. Words seemed superfluous. He must’ve agreed, because he didn’t speak either.
Together they could just…be.
A long time later, she whispered, “I think I can sleep now.”
He didn’t answer for so long that she wondered if he was still there. “Me too.”
“Good night, Cory.”
“Good night, Vic.”
…
He’d lied again.
Predawn found Cory at his balcony railing, searching for Orion’s Belt as he’d done way too often lately. It was early in the season for it to be visible, but his high-powered telescope helped. He usually left the telescope in the closet in favor of his binoculars but the clarity of the view this morning had made him bring out the big guns. Sirius winked away madly in the lightening sky, and he foolishly wished on it as he always did. But what he wished for had changed.
She’d done something to him. Maybe a curse, maybe a spell. It had been a long time since he’d had a crush or anything close to it. Infatuation could confuse a lot of things—
No. He wasn’t going to pretend. What he was suffering from went a lot deeper than infatuation or desire. He just didn’t know what he was supposed to do about it.
Some men approached their personal lives with the same focus and zeal they used for business. Not him. He’d had his share of girlfriends over the years, and occasionally he’d considered taking things to the next level. Invariably he’d found some minute flaw in the woman to dissect—or she’d found a not-so-minute flaw in him—that had made the relationship quickly turn sour.
He’d nearly done that here, almost unintentionally. Victoria’s reaction Sunday night to his unavoidable “we’re madly in love” declaration had started the process. God, the wounded look in her whiskey eyes had slayed him. Followed by her booting him out of her town house when he’d been certain she was as eager to have him in her bed as he’d been to get there, then her seeming disinterest in going to the get-together with him, and he’d gone into survival lockdown mode. So much of this whole crazy thing was his fault, but if she was already pulling away, he needed to, as well. It was only prudent.
The only problem with that scenario was that he’d begun to think about the future. He’d started looking down the road of his life and saw only the same view, day in and day out. He loved his work, there was no doubt about it. But there was more to life, and he wasn’t as willing to shut himself off as he’d been only a few weeks ago.
Spell, curse, miracle. Perhaps she was all three.
The only solution was to be honest with her. She was still keeping secrets about her personal life, he could tell, but it stood to reason that if he offered more of himself—if he figured out how—she would probably feel more comfortable with him. He wanted to be her friend. He definitely wanted to be her lover. The way she’d given herself in the barn had irrevocably sealed that decision. She fit him so well in so many ways, though even their jagged edges created sparks. Maybe he even wanted to be…more.
That more was scaring the holy fucking hell out of him.
He pushed aside his telescope and viewed the milky sky with his naked eye. Sunrise was always a beautiful thing to behold, even when his shoulders were stiff with tension and his eyes sore from lack of sleep. This time of year was especially beautiful, with the leaves turning in the trees on the hillside that surrounded the city. The sun’s rays cast the town in a pink-and-orange hue and the crisp morning breeze carried the scents of woodsmoke and fall.
It was the perfect morning to share with someone. With Victoria. If he turned his head, he could smell her hair, feel the way her fingers curled into his chest. If he concentrated, he could visualize the humor and the longing in her pale-brown eyes, burning just for him. Mixed in with both, her utter understanding of who he was at the molecular level. They’d known each other so long that even this giant change in their relationship only felt like a whole new level to their banter.
Yet he was alone, as always.
The irony of Victoria was that he hadn’t realized what he was lacking until she’d shot through the center of his life like a tornado. Imagining her not part of it in the same way anymore after his parents left town in a little over a week made him want to pound his fists into something hard and sharp.
He couldn’t let it happen.
Glancing at his watch, he exhaled and pushed away from the rail. He had to get ready for the day.
