Chasing Peace Page 8

  “Hold on.” He lifts me with one arm wrapped under my ass and the other holding tight against my back. I jerk and let out a shriek, partly because I’m suddenly moving and partly because his belt buckle scrapes across my clit before wedging lower. It might have hurt, but my pants are in the way making it more stimulation than pain. With my arms wrapped around his shoulders, holding tight, I tilt my pelvis, sliding against his belt buckle and moaning. I feel like I’m outside myself, embarrassed by my response, but there’s nothing I can do to help myself.

  “Bedroom.” His voice is a hoarse bark.

  “Futon.” We’re not going into the bedroom and thankfully I’d left in a hurry this morning so my futon is lying flat, my blankets still strewn across the makeshift bed.

  Dropping me before him and kneeling between my thighs, Boston’s hands slick up my torso and under my shirt, pushing my clothing out of the way. Raising my arms, my shirt and bra disappear into the dimness of the room. I tackle his tee, struggling to peel the material away from shoulders that wouldn’t budge and arms locked in place as his fingers return to my bared breasts.

  “Hey,” I whine in frustration. His skin hot and smooth covers ropes and ridges of muscle, delighting my seeking fingers, but I can’t quite get to all of it with his shirt in the way.

  “Sorry.” Boston pauses, yanking his shirt over his head before settling between my thighs and squeezing a moan from my throat. His body forces my legs wider, the flat plane of his belly hard against the moist denim between my thighs. The rigid metal of his buckle taunts me while he worships my breasts, consuming my nipples.

  My breathing ragged, I give up on the heated sensation of his skin as need roars within me. It surges in my chest like a giant balloon inflating between my ribs, pressing against my lungs and stealing my breath from the inside out. My fingers clamor at his waist, following his belt around to the buckle. Pushing against the tightness of his stomach, I fumble to loosen his pants, handicapped as he draws on my nipples.

  I’m gushing wet. The sucking and plucking at my nipples send pulsing tremors through me, building a fire in my belly that I can’t contain. My internal muscles clench and relax in response as he engulfs my nipples and then releases.

  Boston shifts slightly to give me room as I loose the buckle and work on the button and zipper, drawn tight by the force of his cock. Urgency builds. It makes me fumble until finally he is free. My hands dive inside, the brass from his zipper catching my knuckles. I ignore the scraping that’s not quite painful, overwhelmed by temptation and greed as I push his underwear out of the way, struggling to wrap my fingers around his mass.

  Boston finally leaves my breasts, shoving his jeans away. His breath from a distance tickles cold across the wetness of my tightening nipples creating another kind of shiver. I don’t mind.

  Sensations rule, fueling urgent need. There are no thoughts or concerns, should or should not, only awareness and driving need for more as I lose myself in the moment, with no conscious thought that I can never go back.

  My pants are finally open and I lift my ass from the futon as Boston slides them down my legs. My eyes pop open when he stops at my thighs. He lifts my legs, one at a time to remove my shoes and socks while watching me closely. I drown in the depths of his eyes, floating instead of struggling and waiting in limbo for his return.

  My entire body jerks, my lips parting on a gasp. I didn’t notice his hands returning to my body until his fingers startle me, sinking into me at the same time his thumb slicks alongside my clit. I pull back, but there’s no place to go, the futon firm at my back. He teases me; his thumb sliding from below to one side and then back down before moving to the other side. Back and forth, down and back up again he taunts me, my hips swinging with the rhythm, sweat beading on my temples and upper lip, air gasping through my throat.

  Boston doesn’t move the fingers shoved deep within me. Instead, I move, tilting my hips every time his thumb slides alongside my clit. I’m thrusting his fingers inside of me, my hips fluttering with his every move and I can’t help myself. I want more and faster, but Boston controls our pace, drawing me out and making me wait.

  I’d lost touch with his cock when he removed our jeans and for the moment I don’t miss it. Grasping at his shoulders, I pull him toward me as my hips pulse with his rhythm. My back arches, my head falls back, thrashing from side to side. His fingers tease and rile as I buck and whimper. I tighten around his fingers in a frenzy pushing back at the tremors building low in my belly until they overwhelm me, detonating and sending me somewhere else with a force that I relish.

  My breath and my awareness are gone as I pant, floating within myself, or maybe I’m outside of myself. Wherever I am, it’s dark with flashes of electricity that look like lightning but with sizzle instead of thunder. I jolt as my thighs tremble, remnants of orgasm pulsing. I’m riding his fingers, jerking and ragged instead of fluid and rhythmic.

  Awareness begins to return. Boston leaves me, his fingers no longer inside of me, his skin no longer under my fingertips. My body sprawled like a ragdoll, arms flung out, legs splayed. I am limp but still jerking from the occasional sizzle, my clit still throbbing, my muscles clenching and pulsing.

  “Boston?” I ask with a trembling voice trying to lift eyelids heavy as anvils.

  “I’m here,” he says as I pry my eyes open to slits, just wide enough to see him looming above me.

  I needn’t have bothered because in the same moment I feel his cock probing my entrance and then he slowly plunges, sliding deep within me, battering my still clenching muscles. I groan at the fullness that makes me feel like coughing. The nest of curls at the base of his cock teases and abrades my still-throbbing clit until the need is back. It rises up from my belly and crushes my lungs, expanding and filling my chest.

  Boston pulls out slowly and then sinks back in, stretching me to accept him, groaning low in his throat as I envelope him. His tempo is slow and rolling as I lock my ankles behind his lower back, pulling myself up to meet his every stroke. I try to push him faster, my breath caught on the mass of him inside me. He won’t budge, rolling his hips to a measured song.

  Fire licks in my belly again, liquid and raging hot and spreading fast. I can feel every sensation. Smooth, cool fabric below me grows warm and damp. Slick sweat on my belly cools as we part, but burns hot and slippery when we come back together. The force of his cock parts me and then pulls easily from my clenching grasp. The rhythmic bump of his pelvis taunts my clit as he rams home. Hot smooth skin at his shoulders denies my grasping fingers. Every sensation sends ecstasy thrilling through me.

  Moving faster now, his cock swelling, I vigorously match every delicious stroke, pulling him toward me, needful. There’s no denying. Boston has something I need and I have something he needs too. Right now it’s these moments of intimacy. On another day, it might be something else, but for now I am content. No, I’m not content at all.

  I am desperate, scaling the face of a rocky cliff Boston urging me on, above me, within me, until I reach the precipice. There I balance, but only for a moment before crossing the invisible line between torture and ecstasy.

  “Sterling.” His voice is gruff, grating on hypersensitive nerve endings. “Sterling, oh God…” Guttural rasping sizzles my skin from the soles of my feet to the tips of my fingers to the depths within me. He goes deep, staying there as I quake, holding me together as the quake tries to rip me in two.

  “Uh ... aaaaagh ... augh ... augh....” Strange words flood unbidden from my throat as I am torn from all that I know, hurled over the edge and holding tight to Boston as if my life depends on it. I am falling into a massive crevasse, everything solid and stable in my life crumbling into uncertainty as air swirls on skin hot and steamy.

  My eyes squeeze tight, back arching and toes flexing as wave after wave assaults me. I’m rigid as if in rigor while my fingers grasp at Boston, flexing at his shoulders in tandem with other muscles flexing and grasping at his cock. I calm but only slightly b
efore I’m assaulted again, tumbling. I alternate between weightless falling and agonizing collision while Boston pounds into me, pushing and demanding everything from me.

  I respond with everything I have to give as Boston pummels me, faster and abandoned until he jerks and spasms, grunting along with the keening sounds now coming from me.

  As the frenzy subsides, I float, drifting about like an autumn leaf coming down from above on a still day. Boston’s weight pins me down yet I’m weightless as if life is effortless and I can go on like this forever, but I cannot.

  All too soon the moisture on my skin becomes too cold, the heat from Boston’s body overwhelming, his weight suffocating, yet not nearly as heavy as the content euphoria I’d never felt before. I feel like I’ve been to battle and returned to tell a glorious tale.

  What have I done? The voices in my head admonish.

  This is supposed to be casual, yet roiling emotions batter me. My heart rate picks up. My respiration comes in gasps as I struggle to make sense of how I feel, and I’m no longer talking about Boston’s cock wedged between my thighs.

  I’d compromised again. I’d vowed avoidance until intrigue set it. Then I promised to enjoy, but keep it casual. Now I know I’d lied to myself, one of those little tales we tell ourselves so we can justify what we really want, so we can rationalize our behavior.

  “How am I going to fix this?” I wonder.

  * * *

  I’d been here before. The déjà vu tells me so. It’s warm outside and I’m driving with the windows down. My old car is frosty despite the heat. It’s dark, but the streetlights cast a yellow glow and my headlights are bright.

  Something about this night stands out. I’m on my way home from work. It could have been any night, but it’s not and I can’t remember why this night is so important. It’s late, but not too late, maybe midnight. I spy police lights up ahead, the telltale blue flashing, but out of sync with the red. I can’t reach them.

  There aren’t any other cars on the road except me and the flashing lights. They keep moving, just out of reach. With every hill or bend in the road, I expect to come across an accident. I can see them flashing, but I never get any closer.

  I wake up at the hospital. I’m cold. The lights are bright and the people solemn. They know something that I don’t and I’m struggling to understand. A nurse arrives with a blanket as if a blanket might bring me warmth. I try to clutch it tight with the fingers of one hand, but I can’t hold it close enough to keep in the heat. My arms won’t move, one weighed down and heavy, the other tethered. The blanket hangs from my shoulders, doesn’t help at all, or maybe it’s holding in the cold.

  Dread lurks riding hard against my frantic mind. I race to find out what happened, seeking answers to unasked questions and trying to fit the puzzle together. My path is bright and sterile, endless hallways honeycomb one into the next. It’s a hospital, but everyone’s gone. I don’t know where I’m going and I’m sure I never want to get there, but I persevere. My legs churn, my arms pump, my lungs ache. My head explodes with the effort. The more I struggle, the more futile.

  I’m too late, but it doesn’t matter because I’m sinking. My feet are too heavy, my knees too weak. I need to get to Emma, but I can’t take another step. I have to move, but the gravity is too much. It weighs me down, pressing on my shoulders, my belly, the back of my neck.

  In only moments I go from racing to still, questions to understanding. I can’t fix this. I was too late before I began, my only hope, to turn back the clock and try again, only earlier, but I can’t go back, I can never go back.

  Now that I know, the floor can’t hold me. I grab at the light and rage into the darkness as I dissolve, falling through the cracks, becoming darkness too.

  * * *

  I’m pinned in place when I wake up. My first impulse is to struggle, but I don’t. It feels secure rather than restraining, calming instead of upsetting. I’m in my apartment. This is my bed, my duvet and my clock, which displays a measly five-twelve. Looking to the window, I see dim light beginning to seep in around and through the slats in the blinds. It’s morning, but it’s early.

  I wiggle just a bit to roll over, but I can’t, restrained by arms holding me close. It’s Boston. I recognize the hands I’d watched dancing on piano keys like a hummingbird buzzing between flowers. He smells like warmth and citrus, a scent uniquely his, but why is he in my bed?

  Lying still, I let it all come back while luxuriating in the quiet warmth of early morning, the security of the body pressed tightly to my back. My head is on my pillow, my neck on his bicep. His arm beneath me doesn’t wrap around. Instead it rests like a fire hose unrolled across my bed. The other arm is wrapped tight around me, his elbow at my hip, fingers splayed across my stomach, just below my breasts, the duvet not quite covering us.

  I can feel the heat radiating at my back, his shoulders slightly above mine, his chest and belly skimming my back, his hips cradling me. He has an erection too. I can feel it through the blanket pressing intimately, nudging. I’ve slept with men and am not surprised by this almost biological response, but I’m inordinately pleased. It shouldn’t matter. It might mean very little, but I smile still.

  The dream had come like a demon that feeds on the dark. It usually wakes me, dragging me into the darkness, making me a creature of the night. Last night did not follow the same path.

  Boston knows I am awake. I smile to myself as his arms tighten around me almost imperceptibly. Whether I moved or not, I’ll never know.

  “Are you awake?” I’m not sure why I asked.

  “Ummm Hmmm. It’s early. You should go back to sleep.”

  His breath skates across my ear, ruffling my hair and sending a shiver through me.

  “It’s morning. I’m awake.”

  “Ummm Hmmm.” His fingers trace lazy swirls across my belly. “But you didn’t get much sleep last night.”

  My cheeks flame in mortification. “I guess … we were … up a little late,” I stutter. My eyes drift away from him in embarrassment.

  “You were dreaming too.”

  “Oh that.” The dream is never good, but for some reason I’m relieved he’s not commenting on my morality. “I went right back to sleep though, so I’m good.”

  “Sleep some more. I have to go.”

  I murmur an incoherent response, already floating back into the oblivion that is sleep, the sleep of the innocent, but I’m no innocent. The breath across my ear stops. I feel his lips against my temple. I’m losing awareness and the ability to object. “Mmmm,” I hum, reveling in his gentle handling.

  When I wake again, I have my apartment to myself. I feel like my life is new and good and bright and realization that Emma is gone never sets in. I have something else on my mind. Instead of thinking what might have been, I imagine what might be.

  Chapter 9

  “Penny for your thoughts.”

  “Hmmm?” I mutter, not really paying attention. I’m on the futon, reclining against Boston, fatigue from the day draining away as I melt into him.

  I haven’t pulled out the blanket and pillows yet so we’re officially relaxing on the sofa. I showered the work off my body and changed into yoga pants and a tee. He hung his jacket over my desk chair. His shoes and socks are missing, his shirt sleeves rolled almost to the elbow. My fuzzy-sock feet rest on the coffee table right next to his bare feet. It’s so domestic.

  “I’m wondering why my mom stopped by.”

  “To say hello?”

  “It’s never that simple with my mom. She usually wants something.”

  “To say hello?”

  I chuckle at that. “Yeah, but she’s not drinking. She’s predictable when she’s drinking I’m not sure what to think when she’s not.” Boston’s hands stroke up and down my arms making me mellow and I confess, “She’s an alcoholic.”

  “That sucks.”

  “Yeah, right?”

  “What about your dad?”

  “I never knew him and my m
om claims she doesn’t either. She was drunk at the time.”

  “That’s tough.”

  “It wasn’t so bad. I could do whatever I wanted growing up and no one cared.”

  “I know what that’s like and it’s not all that great.”

  “Yeah,” I sigh. “I can’t tell you how many times I cleaned her up and put her to bed before I left for school. I guess I spent my childhood praying she’d stop drinking, until I gave up.”

  “If only it were that easy.”

  “Yeah, right? I dumped out her booze once or twice, but then she’d buy more. I figured out pretty quick that if I swiped some of her money when she was drunk, I could buy food before she spent it all on brandy, except when she was married.”

  “Was that better or worse?”

  “I don’t know why I’m telling you this.” I wiggle to roll away and Boston’s arms tighten a bit holding me almost sprawled across his chest. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

  “You know I grew up with the proverbial mom and dad and white picket fence and it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

  “Yeah.” I don’t believe him. “I’d have given anything to have a mom and dad and a nice normal suburban house.”

  Boston doesn’t protest or pretend that his childhood was better or worse than mine, or laugh at my childish dream. He cups my cheek, kisses the tip of my nose and tilts my face toward his until our eyes meet. It’s always so much more difficult to talk when his eyes search my soul, digging deep and pulling out emotions I don’t even recognize as mine.

  He kisses my lips, not passionate, but not a quick peck either. “I saw you at the hotel when I left after my audition. You caught my eye and I didn’t know why.

  I slapped my palm against his shoulder. “Maybe it’s the same reason other guys notice me, ya think?”

  “That’s exactly what I thought at first but then later, when you took a swing at me, I saw pain in your eyes and loneliness. I know what it’s like to be alone and I wanted to make those feelings go away.”