738 Days: A Novel (37 page)

Instinctively, I push my hips toward him, sinking his finger deeper inside me. I gasp.

He stops, lifting his head from my breast with an audible pop.

“Yes, I mean, it’s good,” I babble.

He returns his mouth to my breast, his blond head bobbing before me, and the sight of him like this, combined with the sensations, only sends a flood of warmth through me.

And it doesn’t take long before I’m pushing up against him, riding his hand while he remains still.

It’s what I need and yet somehow not enough.

A whimper escapes me against my will. “I need more,” I beg before he can ask. Because I think I’ll die if he stops now. There’s a constant roar of need in my head. That sense of something building has returned, but with it, more frustration. It’s like reaching for the top of a shelf and being just a few inches too short.

His tongue swirls over my nipple as I feel the pressure of a second finger pushing inside me, next to the first. It’s tight but it feels so good, more filling. Not as much as I want, but better.

His hand rocks against me now, his fingers moving in me and it’s … so … yes.

I tighten my knee on his hip, tucking my foot behind his leg, trying to pull him closer.

Wet sounds, the audible proof of how excited I am as he moves his fingers in me, break into my awareness.

I turn toward him and bury my face against the arm he’s using to support himself, embarrassed. “God.”

He gives a strangled laugh. “That’s good; it’s so good.” His voice is rough, unsteady. “It means you’re close, that you’re feeling it.”

He shifts, changing the angle of his hand and curling those fingers inside me, and a helpless moan escapes me.

He bends his head toward me, his breathless voice closer to my ear. “And hearing that, feeling how wet you are for me, makes me so fucking hard. Because it means when you’re ready, I would be able to slide in and get so deep and make us both feel amazing.”

My eyes flutter open, and his gaze, so familiar to me now, is pinned to my face, but those dark blue eyes are but a sliver of color. The pupils have swallowed the irises whole. His cheeks are flushed with color.

As I watch, his mouth opens slightly, those perfect teeth sinking into his bottom lip, strain written across his features.

Looking down, I see the cords of muscle in his forearm tensing and relaxing as he works in me.

And suddenly I can imagine what it would feel like, moving with him inside me, connecting in the most intimate way possible.

Before I can say,
I want,
or even whisper,
Yes,
a sudden chill spreads over my skin, raising goose bumps, and then that building, reaching feeling hits a peak, catching me off guard. And it all falls, falls, falls down and I’m shivering and shuddering, helpless against the waves.

“That’s it,” he whispers in my ear, what sounds like pride, not for himself but in me. “You’ve got it; just keep moving.”

My hips push against him automatically, and the clutching feeling slowly fades away, leaving behind a growing sensation of contentment and warmth. I feel boneless and relaxed in a way I haven’t in, I don’t know, maybe ever.

“Okay?” he asks as I sag into him.

I lean back to peer up at him, a ridiculous smile spreading across my face. I couldn’t stop it even if I wanted to. “Yes.” The word is slurred with pleasure.

He laughs, a deep rumbling in his chest that I feel, and leans down to plant a quick kiss on my mouth. “Yeah, it’s pretty good.”

He pulls his hand away from me, and satisfied though I am, a complaining noise escapes my mouth. Less for the specific action than the loss of connection.

“Greedy you,” Chase teases, kissing my forehead.

“Yes.” He’s kidding but I realize he’s right: I am being greedy. Just not in the way he means.

Glancing down our bodies, I see the front of his faded jeans straining, pulled tight against his erection, which looks so large as to be possibly painful to him and definitely intimidating to me.

But at the sight of him like that, a craving unfurls in me and spreads, like an itch in my blood. I want to touch him. I want to see him come undone, see his face slack with pleasure. I want to see all that control he worked so hard to maintain for me unravel spectacularly.

But to do that …

I bite my lip, and contemplate what that would mean.

Grinding against him, against it, isn’t the same. That, I could do. Have done. But somehow the idea of touching him, of undoing his pants, feels like too much, like skating too close to the edge.

A tiny trickle of dread wends its way through my post-orgasm bliss, and I hate it, the fear eating acid-like at my contentment.

Fuck fear. I’m so sick of it. It’s just a body part, a penis. So what? My first experiences with one were traumatic and horrible, yes. But that doesn’t mean that
every
encounter will be the same. Chase has already proven that in general in a dozen ways since I met him.

Why would this be any different?

And he won’t do anything I don’t want him to. If he was that kind, he would have done it already. A closed zipper—or button fly, in this case—is no deterrent.

“Hey,” Chase says, nudging me gently. I look up to see him frowning, sensing the change in my mood. “Where’d you go? Is everything—”

“What about you?” I ask, heart pounding so hard it’s making me tremble.

His brows draw together in confusion. “What?”

“This.” Tentatively, I reach out and run my hand over the hardened bulge behind his fly.

He sucks a breath in a hiss through his teeth, and his hips jerk forward into my hand, his face a fierce mask of want.

A heady rush of heat and power surges through me until I’m almost dizzy from it. I made him react that way, I made him
want
, but I’m in control. I could almost laugh from the relief and giddiness.

He tilts away from my hand. “It’s fine. I’ll handle it later.” He gives a shaky laugh. Those crinkles at the edges of his eyes make my chest throb with emotion, sending a wave of powerful affection through me, so much so that it feels as if the undertow will pull me under to drown, and I’ll go happily.

I push up and kiss the lines I can reach, on the right side of his face. The next words pop out before I can stop them, before I can change my mind. “Can I watch? I mean, if that’s okay with you,” I add hastily. It seems like a good compromise to me—I might not be ready yet to take on my reluctance directly, but watching him touch himself might help with the intimidation factor, not to mention then he won’t be so miserable.

It all sounds very practical to me, but it evidently sounds like more to Chase.

His breathing stops abruptly, only to emerge in a harsh exhale against my throat. “Now?” He sounds hoarse, and that power-high returns.

“Yes,” I say. After that reaction? Oh, hell, yes.

“You don’t have to—” he begins, and I sit up because I want him to see me and hear that I mean it.

“I know that,” I say calmly. “I want to.”

He swallows hard, and I hear the click of his dry throat. Then he gives a jerky nod. His cheeks are flushed and he’s biting his lip. I’m not sure if that’s uncertainty or restraint. Either way, it is possibly the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.

“Are you sure?” he asks as I settle next to him, stretching out on my side and propping myself up on one elbow. But he’s already tugging carefully at the top button on his jeans, knowing my answer even as I nod.

Dark gray boxer briefs emerge from behind his fly as he yanks the rest of the buttons free. The shape of him is much clearer without his jeans in the way. Longer than my hand and thicker than I expected, too. That makes the tremor of uncertainty in me increase a little.

Before I have a chance to potentially panic, though, he lifts up and shoves his jeans and boxers down his body in one smooth motion, revealing everything the fabric was hiding.

The hair there is not quite the brighter gold he has elsewhere, and it’s trimmed close to his body. His penis stands slightly away from his abdomen, the skin darker with the flush of blood. The rounded tip is wet, and I’m fascinated by the sight.

I touch lightly with one fingertip, unable to resist, and his penis twitches toward me, like I’m home and it wants nothing more than to come inside.

He moans at my touch. “It’s not … I won’t last … if we were together, it would be much better than this,” he tries, his words coming out garbled, half finished.

“I’m not worried,” I say, then I follow an impulse and lean forward for a quick second to swipe my tongue across his chest before retreating.

He groans and locks his hand around himself at the base.

“Keep looking at me like that, and I won’t have to do anything at all,” he says in a thick voice.

I raise my eyebrows. “Really?”

He pulls up and down in a motion I recognize, though it’s rougher than anything he did to me.

“When you came to the door, I thought you were wearing my shirt without anything under it. I almost lost it,” he says.

Interesting. The revelation sends flutters through me, centering between my legs.

“Is that what you want to see?” I ask, feeling daring after his confession and the heated expression on his face.

Without waiting for his answer, I lift my hips and shimmy out of my sleep shorts and underwear. His shirt covers me anyway, and it’s actually a relief to peel the damp material away from my still-aching-in-a-good-way flesh.

His eyes go wide and then squeeze shut. “You’re going to kill me,” he mumbles.

I can’t stop myself from grinning.

When his fist is on the downward motion, my boldness resurfaces and I reach forward to close my fingers lightly over the head of him.

He arches hard toward my hand with a groan.

“Can you tell me what to do?” I ask in a whisper; my insides are quivering with nerves and excitement.

“You’re asking me to talk when your hand is on my cock?” he responds in a strangled voice, removing his hand from himself.

Instinctively, I move my hand down to take its place.

“Keep doing that.” His hand closes over mine, guiding on speed and pressure until I’ve got it. The heat of him is intense and when I squeeze a little tighter around him, he grits his teeth and pushes harder through the circle of my fingers.

“Seems like it should hurt,” I murmur.

“It doesn’t, not like that. But it would be better with lubrication.” He gives me a direct look that lights something on fire in me. He means me, all the wet I couldn’t control. He wants that on him.

I shiver in delight at the graphicness of the image he’s put in my mind.

He rocks his head back against the couch, his lip pinched between his teeth. When he releases it, he licks his lips and opens his eyes to meet my gaze. “Can you open your shirt? So I can see?”

The words alone send a primitive surge of heat in a lightning bolt between my legs.

Instead of answering him, I maneuver the arm that’s supporting my weight to tug at the material of my shirt until the cool air licks my skin.

My hand is working on him, but he’s staring at me. “You are so beautiful. Everywhere, inside and out.” He leans forward and kisses me, his mouth demanding and hot.

I give him everything he asks for in that kiss, everything I can.

When he pulls back, his hand closes over mine again, tugging harder at himself than I would have dared. Impossibly, he seems to grow harder and his breath is coming faster and faster.

“Amanda,” he says, my name more a suggestion of sound than an actual word.

Then his whole body shudders and he gasps, his eyes wide but unseeing for a moment. Warm fluid splashes against my arm, startling me, but I ignore it for the moment, caught by the sight of him.

He looks so vulnerable and alone, this man who came to get me, the one who stands between me and anyone or anything that scares me. I want to pull him against me and hold him, giving him shelter and strength.

After a moment, he blinks, shivering, and his chest heaves as he struggles to catch his breath. “Holy shit. I don’t think it’s been like that since I first learned to…” He stops himself and laughs with an edge of hysteria, and I remember the overpowering sensation of well-being that I felt, that he made me feel.

His face seems softer now, younger, more relaxed. “Thank you.”

I shake my head. “No, thank you for letting me…” I hesitate. “I was afraid … I wasn’t sure if I could.”

He reaches over me and pulls a handful of tissues from the box on the coffee table to wipe my arm.

As he cleans me up and then himself, I lean into him, kissing his forehead, his temple, the crinkles by his eyes, until he looks up at me.

I capture his soft and willing mouth with mine, trying to convey the sweetness that is building in my chest, threatening to bubble over in some unknown manner. Tears, words? I don’t know.

He touches my chin with his thumb. “Stay with me?” he asks.

My confusion must have shown in my face. “I am.”

“I mean tonight, in here.” He reaches down and tugs his jeans and boxers back into place, leaving the fly open.

Involuntarily, I look over my shoulder in the direction of the king-sized bed. “I don’t know. Mia’s here…” Though who am I kidding? She practically shoved me through the door into Chase’s room earlier. I take a moment to lift up a prayer that she’s asleep by now and hasn’t been listening with her ear pressed to the door. That would be embarrassing on a level I don’t want to contemplate.

“We’re right next door, if she needs something,” Chase says. “And I promise, I’ll keep to my half of the bed. Nothing else is going to happen tonight. I just want you here with me.”

When I turn my head to face him, the honesty, vulnerability, in his expression breaks something in me, and words come flooding to my tongue, dangerous ones.

Suddenly, I’m all too aware of what this sweet, tight feeling in my chest is.

Love. I’m in love with him.

All my fears of penises suddenly seem small in comparison.

I can’t love him. That’s crazy. This is over in a few days. He’s going back to California; I’m going home to finish my high school classwork and figure out if I can have something resembling a normal life. Maybe even apply to college, now that I feel like I have a shot at succeeding in a new environment.