For a second I stopped moving.“You followed me?”The warmth generated from her confession radiated from my chest to the tips of my fingers and down to my toes.
A soft snort, then, “Yeah.Super-hot stranger in a tux coupled with the anonymity of our masks?Irresistible.”
“And now?”I thrust into her again.The skin-on-skin contact of going bare drove me pleasantly crazy, and I wanted to prolong the sensation for as long as I could.
“Now, no matter how illogical it is, I can’t give you up.”Before I could call her out on “illogical,” she squeezed her inner muscles around me at the same time she tightened her arms over my shoulders and her legs around my waist.“I love you, Cash Donovan.I didn’t mean for that to happen, but it did.I love you so much.”
Those words unleashed a tidal wave of emotions inside me—emotions my body understood faster than my brain as I pushed up on my hands and started pounding into her because I couldn’t help myself.
“Cash!”she panted.“Oh, sweet Jesus.Cash!”
Her back bowed as her pussy clamped down on my shaft, my name echoing off the walls as the orgasm overtook her.A couple of strokes more, and lightning licked down my spine, through my balls, and out of my dick.Coming inside my girl with nothing between us was such a high of ecstasy that I almost passed out.For long minutes as the aftershocks rolled through us, I held myself rigidly above her, our eyes locked on each other.
“Thanks for following me upstairs that night.I love you, Saylor Davis.”
I dropped my mouth to hers and let my body relax as we shared long, languorous kisses.She feathered her fingertips along either side of my spine and slid her heel up and down the back of my thigh.Holding Saylor in the afterglow of loving her was as close to heaven on earth as it was possible to be.
When she started sipping air, I chuckled and rolled off her, settling her along my side.“No matter where our dreams take us, we’ll always be together, babe.That’s a promise.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Saylor
It was agood thing the dean had decided to screen our senior projects in the little theater in the Union.From the looks of the crowd, word had spread that something big was up.The number of faculty and grad students in attendance alone made that clear.Then Dean Pullman walked onto the stage in front of the big screen to make a few announcements.Beside me, my teammates fairly vibrated with anticipation while I remained as still as a stone.
Or maybe a cube of ice.My body was so cold a snowball wouldn’t melt in my hand.
I sensed Cash was somewhere in the back of the auditorium where the general public was allowed to sit, but I couldn’t turn around to see, or I might shatter into a thousand shards of ice.
“Welcome to the senior showcase for Film 401.This year, we’re screening sixteen shorts by our extremely talented class.Due to some unforeseen circumstances—”
Esme elbowed my side and whispered, “Unforeseen, my ass.”
I kept my eyes trained on the dean, unwilling to let anyone suspect I was involved in those “circumstances.”
“—we’ve invited the second-year grad students to weigh in on the quality of the films we’ll be critiquing today.In addition, we have some honored guests in attendance.First, I’d like to introduce Gerard Brown, CEO of Ladder Financial Group.”
Gasps of surprise rippled through the audience while I gripped my hands together and ground my back teeth.Of course Barry’s dad would fly in from Massachusetts to save Barry’s sorry ass.After the initial shock, the room erupted in enthusiastic applause.Two rows in front of me, I watched Barry sit a little taller, and I swear he puffed out his chest as though ready to beat it like a caveman who’d won the latest wrestling match.
Pullman let the sound die down as Barry’s dad headed to an empty seat in the front row.Then he said, “In addition to Mr.Brown, Olivia Carter of Heart Dream Studios in Denver is joining us.”
Another ripple of surprise passed through the room—one I couldn’t help but join.Olivia had been serious about watching my film?Having a studio head in attendance meant while the dean had said we’d screen our movies randomly, he’d set it up somehow for my movie and Barry’s group’s movie to show on the same day.
“Without further fanfare, let’s view our first project,Mars Conquers the ThirdReich.”
Every one of my project partners leaned forward and back in our row, exchanging glances from incredulity to outright hilarity.Were these guys serious?They’d made some kind of Nazi movie in this political climate?Barry may not have directing credit, but his grubby and awful fingerprints were all over Justin Murdoch’s senior project.
As we watched the film, pockets of snorted laughter that started in the visitor’s section of the auditorium started to make their way down to the class section.Before the final credits on the ten-minute fiasco rolled, I could hear snickers in the faculty row, and some of the graduate students were in outright hysterics.Whatever Barry and his group were going for—something profound judging by the indignant expressions on their faces as they glanced around the crowd after the lights came up—their film was an unqualified disaster: a muddled mess of amature AI and CGI, incoherent dialogue, and a Star Wars-esque soundtrack that beggared belief.
Stealing a glance at Barry’s dad, I noted with some satisfaction his back was as rigid as a brick wall as he stared straight ahead.
By comparison, the next three films were Oscar contenders.As the dean had said in his intro, we had talented filmmakers in our cohort, but the unmitigated disaster of Justin Murdoch’s: (read, Barry Brown’s), film served to make those that followed it look even better.Then the dean stepped onto the stage to introduce the next film, and my gut twisted in anticipation.
“Our next offering isThis Is: OutlawWhiskey.”
It was all I could do to sit still as the opening scene rolled across the screen, an “outlaw” whipping a bottle of Jameson from a holster strapped to his leg, expertly spinning it over the flat of his palm before grasping it and uncapping it with a flourish that included throwing the cap away, and tipping it back as the heavy strum of a guitar broke the silence.The next ten minutes flashed by in a blur, while simultaneously, I studied every frame as it flickered on the screen.I barely registered the audience’s laughter at the correct moments or the foot stomping that started when the band in my music video mockumentary cranked up its signature song.A collective silence followed the end credits, and my heart dropped into my stomach.A second later, the deafening applause of a standing ovation filled the theater.My project partners were high-fiving and hugging, while I remained glued to my seat.
Then someone pulled me up out of my aisle seat, and the next thing I knew, I was staring into a pair of gunmetal-gray eyes a second before Cash laid a kiss on me that rendered me a rag doll in his arms.His grin when he set me back on my feet let me take my first full breath in what seemed like a lifetime.
