“Went out to grab breakfast,” I explained, like I wasn’t already spreading out the evidence.
“I figured. Oh, thank God,” she said, lunging for the coffee when I held it out to her.
“Didn’t sleep well?” I asked, forcing my face to stay passive when what I wanted was to smirk because I knew her bed smelled like me, that there was no way she’d rested there all night and hadn’t thought about me. About us.
“Not really, no. You look rough too.”
“Must’ve been something in the air.”
For a second, I saw something soft flash across her gaze, but she banked it down too fast to be sure.
We spent breakfast in painfully awkward silence, each of us trying a few times to bat some topic of conversation out, but the other seeming incapable of doing anything but strike out. Until, eventually, we just gave up and ate, cleaned up, then went to get our things.
“Are you excited to be back on the road again?” Lula asked as we climbed in the back of the town car Teddy sent, the privacy partition already up.
Thirty-something hours by myself with nothing to do but remember how much nicer it was to have her at my side, how amazing it felt to have her over me, under me, crying out for me? Yeah, I was really fucking jazzed up about that.
“Eh. This is the work part,” I said, shrugging it off. The movement made me frustratingly aware of how close we were sitting, how her soft skin brushed against my arm.
“I thought you liked your work.”
“Sometimes.”
I saw in my periphery the way she glanced at me, how her brows furrowed. She was used to the fun, light, easygoing side of me. The one who could twist even the most serious situations into something funny.
But like her, I had layers. And sometimes they weren’t as easy to hide under that fun-loving persona. When I was about to say goodbye to the woman I’d been in love with for years, but just got to have for a few precious moments, only to get it ripped away right after, yeah, that was one of those times.
I saw her open and close her mouth twice before she finally found her voice. “Are you mad at me?”
I sucked in a deep breath, trying to choose my words carefully because I knew how much those cost her to say.
“No, babe. I’m not mad at you.” It would be easier if I could be. But I knew her too well; I understood why she was so guarded, so scared to make the wrong decision. Especially after what Drake did to her. I wasn’t mad. I was just fucking… sad. Disappointed. Worried that she was slipping through my fingers, but knowing that gripping tighter would only make me lose her faster.
“Okay, but,” she said, shifting in her seat to face me, “you seem angry.”
“I’m not.” I reached out, my thumb tracing under her eye, wiping away some mascara that decided to migrate. Then I planned to ball that hand up and keep it to myself.
That was the plan.
Until her head tilted into the touch. Until her gaze went all soft and sweet. Until her lips parted and her eyes slipped to my lips.
I had every intention of keeping the space between us. But when a woman looked at you like that…
My hand went to the back of her neck, grabbing and pulling until she shifted up onto her knees, then moved to straddle me.
I tugged her down until her lips were on mine. There wasn’t any of the soft sweetness of the day before. It was hard, hungry, desperate.
Lula’s hips dropped down on my lap, making her whimper tangle with my groan as she pressed against my cock as it hardened in my jeans.
There was no hesitation as my tongue teased hers, she rocked against me, chasing the friction, the end to the pressure building inside her.
My hands drifted down her back, sank into her ass, dragging her against me—harder, faster—until she was moaning against my lips, until she had to break the kiss to catch her breath.
“Rafe, please,” she whimpered when my heavy-lidded gaze met hers.
I fumbled for my wallet as her hands went to my button and zipper, working them free, then palming me through my boxer briefs, making my brain short circuit for a second as I nipped the edge of the condom foil.
But then she was reaching inside, freeing me, stroking me, as her hips did needy little wiggles.
