“Oh Mylanta!” Zoey exclaims, which is the weirdest expression ever and it makes me laugh.
“Now if you’ll excuse us, I’m going to take my boyfriend home and have some really great sex to celebrate his new contract and my unemployment,” Dixie announces and starts to pull me away.
Behind us I hear another “Oh Mylanta!” and Jude’s groan. We stop only for a second to tell Levi I’m getting a full-time contract. He’s so happy it makes my chest feel tight. We grab a Lyft, make out in the back the entire way, and barely make it into her apartment before undressing. But once we’re naked on her bed, everything seems to slow down. I gently lay her down on top of me, and let my fingertips glide through her hair and down her delicate neck. I kiss her gently, as the weight of everything seems to settle around us. “Are you really okay with everything?”
“Yes,” she replies firmly. “I mean, I’m panicked and terrified, but I can’t keep working there. It’s not what I want in my life. And she’s a fraud, making people like Nadine stick to rules and then turning a blind eye with Eddie and using her own team like a sexual supermarket. I don’t want any part of that.”
I try not to smile at the sexual supermarket comment, but I can’t help it. She smiles back but it wobbles. “But I need a job. Fast. I can’t lose this apartment, and I don’t have much savings.”
“You could move in with your parents for a while. You’d get to spend a lot more time with your dad.”
“I can’t.” Her expression turns stricken. I suddenly feel bad for even suggesting it. “I see my dad almost every day, but I can’t live there. I can’t be like Sadie, who is trained to watch people die. I’m not like Winnie, who seems to be able to absorb pain like a sponge. I can only handle helplessly watching him die in fits and starts. I need a job, because it’s something I can win at. It gives me purpose and sanity.”
“Dixie, you’re incredible at what you do. You’ll find a job. And if you don’t, you can borrow money from me until you do. I promise I won’t let this decision backfire on you,” I tell her.
She bites her lip, like she’s contemplating telling me something. Before I can ask her what she’s thinking she confesses. “When I was at the ALS Foundation last week, they mentioned they had an opening in their PR department.”
I feel a spark of excitement for her. “That sounds like a match made in heaven.”
“It does, doesn’t it?” She smiles softly. “I’ll apply tomorrow.”
She kisses me softly, with tender lips and a gentle tongue. It’s different for us, and I like it. Actually I fucking love it. So I match her tender touches with my own. The sex is like that too—soft, and gentle and slow. It’s longing as much as sensation. It’s promises as much as pleasure. We climax one after the other, and it’s the most intense orgasm I’ve ever had.
We don’t say anything afterward. We just lie there tangled up in each other, her back to my chest, my arm across her hip, our legs intertwined, and I lay a kiss on her shoulder. “You should probably know I love you.”
When I don’t get a response I worry, but as I look down I realize she’s asleep. I laugh to myself. This is why I stick to cheesy pickup lines. It’s too easy to screw up the stuff that comes from your heart. Luckily, I’ll get another chance with her because this isn’t a secret hookup anymore. It’s real life.
27
Dixie
The next morning I’m fighting waking up. I want to stay here, naked in my bed wrapped around his perfect naked body, for the entire day. I could technically do it—since I’m unemployed. Ugh.
I feel him shift, but I refuse to open my eyes even as he untangles himself from me. I feel his lips on my forehead and I make a little mewing sound. “Sweet Dixie…I have to get to practice.”
“Right now?” I murmur in protest more into the pillow than to him.
“In an hour, which is why I’m waking you up now,” he replies in a husky voice. He gently kisses both of my closed eyelids. My eyes flutter open as his fingertips trace a path south, across my ribs and over the curve of my hip and down between my legs. I turn onto my back to give him the access he needs. I arch my back as his fingers move and reach back to grab a condom off the nightstand.
He leans forward, captures my lips in a sweet kiss, and then grins. “You’re in a rush to get to the point.”
“It’s a really great point,” I reply with a smile.
His hands move to my hips. “Turn around.”
I start to slowly move, but he basically grabs me and flips me onto my stomach. God, I love how controlling he can get. It’s the biggest turn-on ever. I bend my knees and get on all fours. I hear him tear the condom wrapper and arch my back in anticipation. One of his hands smacks my ass, not too hard but enough that it leaves a sting that turns into a tingle I feel all the way to my clit. His other hand slips around my hip, down my belly and right to my clit. He starts teasing it—relentlessly. I’m cresting toward an orgasm almost immediately. His chest hair tickles my back as teeth gently sink into my shoulder. Then he moves to my neck, sucking the skin just below my ear.
“I’m going to come soon,” I warn him in a pant.
“That’s the idea,” he whispers back in his gravelly voice.
It’s coming, closer and closer and…just before it hits he leaves me teetering on the brink as his fingers disappear and he grabs my hips and pushes into me. It’s fast, hard and deep. A pleasure-filled groan escapes his lips and mingles with the moan escaping mine. He keeps a hard but slow pace, and his hand moves back to my clit, but again when I’m close his hand disappears. I groan in frustration—delicious, crazy frustration.
He bends forward again. I feel the scrape of his short beard against my shoulder as he smiles at my irritation. “Relax. I’ll get you there. I promise.”
But he doesn’t. He gets me close again—so blindingly close—and then he stops. “Elijah Casco, I am going to scream.”
“Yes, you are,” he agrees, and when I try to move my own hand to my clit to finish what he started, repeatedly, he won’t let me. He pushes me down onto my forearms, which changes the angle of my hips and his angle inside me. He’s deeper and I hear him groan again. Then his fingers are on my clit again and I fight against the pleasure because he’s going to take it away anyway. Only this time he doesn’t, he lets me fall and it’s one hell of a fall. My orgasm is deep, long and intense. His must be the same, judging by the noises he makes as he comes with me.
