His voice was a warning. Something about him tonight, only a cushion between us on the couch, the deep scent of timber and cinnamon surrounding us—he had me. I couldn’t look away. He opened his eyes, meeting mine in the dull glow shining through the skylight. The sensation of falling gripped me, room spinning, but Dex remained still, stoic, his eyes so dark, something flaring deep within them that sent a ripple of electricity through me.
I felt like a deer caught in a staring contest with an oncoming truck.
He unfolded his arms slowly, placing one hand on the cushion between us, the other on his thigh. My eyes dropped with the movement. I inhaled sharply at the outline of him through his sweatpants, the hardness obvious against the thin fabric, andfuck, that ache between my legs returned with a vengeance. Maybe we were both still keyed up from the elevator. Maybe it had been just as long for him as it had been for me.
What are you thinking of doing to me?I thought, lifting my eyes back to his.I’d let you.
He let out a jagged breath and I wondered if he was a mind reader or if the desperation was written all over my face:Touch me, fuck me, hold me, break me. I’d take it all and say thank you.
I placed a hand on the cushion, close to his, accepting the invitation to this strange game of Chicken. My other hand, seemingly of its own volition, drifted to my stomach. Dex’s gaze slid down slowly as my chest rose in heady breaths, to my fingerstwitching with the urge to move. He swallowed, snapping his eyes back to mine.
Then he moved the hand on his thigh to his erection, adjusting himself with a pained expression, and I wondered what hurt more: the need or the want. The pressure building between my own thighs grew blinding. We needed relief.
It never happened, my brain whispered as my hand drifted lower, toying with the string of my pajama shorts. Dex watched me, rapt, inhaling sharply as my hand slipped under the waistband. I was wetter than I could ever remember being and at the first brush of contact, an involuntary sound scraped from my throat. Immediately, any semblance of hesitation disappeared, overwhelmed by the need to come with his eyes on me. I looked at him, breathing hard, fingers working exactly where I needed them, imagining they were his. His lips parted as he watched me and then he squeezed his eyes shut, so briefly, and reached into his pants.
Stars filled my vision. He groaned at the first slide of his hand, and the second, and I synced up my movements with his, that slow, precise maneuver that would probably be considered making love if he were inside me. But he was, wasn’t he? He’d overtaken everything, filling my head with a constant fog, and now here we were. Inevitable.
In the quiet room, our sounds were obscene. Skin against wet skin, bitten moans, the couch whining against our soft movements. We each kept a hand on the cushion. It didn’t take long for me to reach the point of gasping, of fractured, slippery movements anticipating relief. It landed like a detonation, rocking through my whole body, overwhelming every thought, limb, cell. The noises coming from me were unfamiliar. Thisfeelingwas unfamiliar. I’d had plenty of orgasms, and yet coming on my own fingers with Dex’s eyes locked on me was the most intenseexperience of my life. I couldn’t help reaching across the cushion, my fingers wrapping around his wrist, nails digging in as I rode out the release, and then he bent forward with a guttural groan.
Our heavy breathing soundtracked over the silence. I swallowed hard, dizzy, staring at the side of Dex’s head as his movements slowed to a statuesque stillness. My fingers were tight around his wrist.
Could we pretendthisnever happened?
Slowly, Dex withdrew his hand from my grip and climbed to his feet. “See you in the morning,” he murmured without looking at me and moved toward the bedroom, the door softly clicking shut behind him.
I’d expected this and still, my hopeful heart sank. He wasn’t mine to touch, to watch, to turn on, to keep. And I just kept reaching, hoping he might reach back.
But hedid. Each time I plucked up the nerve to push a little harder, he pulled me right in, at least until reality dawned. Dex didn’t seem like the type for games, so the logical answer was guilt. Catalina was states away, closer to him than she’d been in years, and he kept looking at me.I’ll love you forever, his letter said. We wouldn’t be here if that wasn’t true.
I had to stop holding on to this man whose heart belonged to someone else. I needed to accept things as they were instead of wishing they were something else, something better. I was beginning to wonder how thin the line was betweenhopeandhopeless. I sat there for a little too long, waiting, and I imagined Dex on the other side of the bedroom door doing the same thing.
I went upstairs.
Seventeen
Wyoming boasted the most beautiful scenery we’d witnessed so far, which was the perfect excuse to avoid looking at Dex.
Phoebe remained wobbly in the morning, but by the afternoon she’d downed four slices of peanut butter toast and loudly complained about how gross Pedialyte was, so we felt okay piling into the car for the long drive to Idaho. I’d spent a solid five minutes in front of the bathroom mirror, debating the patheticism of another few hours pretending to sleep in the back seat and decided against it. The color had returned to Phoebe’s face, her mood bright and cheery, and I refused to put a damper on it. I contributed to the conversation like everything was just peachy, and I pointedly avoided looking at Dex.
He didn’t look at me either. His attention had become a solid, physical thing. I felt it as if it were a heavy pressure bearing down on my shoulders and now that it was missing, I had to walk carefully as to not drift away in the wind.
“We should make this an annual trip,” Phoebe said about anhour down Interstate 80. I turned fully in my seat, fixing her with an incredulous look. “Not going to see Catalina. I just mean the trip in general. We should travel more.”
“On Dex’s dime,” I said.
She beamed. “Exactly.”
“It’s a nice thought,” Dex said. “But I’m never driving again after this, so you’re out of luck.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re so annoying. I’ve offered to drive a million times.”
He grumbled something unintelligible under his breath. Phoebe popped up through the center console and said, “He doesn’t trust you with the Benz.”
“I don’t give a shit about the car,” he muttered.
“Says the guy who vacuums it every morning,” I said.
Phoebe looked around, eyes widening. “Oh my god. You do?”
