Depths (13 page)

“Then see me,” he dares. “Be with me again.”

I shake my head and his hand locks under my jaw.

“I’ve never done anything with a girl who had a boyfriend,” he says, his voice a rasp on my ears. “But that asshole isn’t your boyfriend. He’s some dumb fuck who’s screwing with you, and I don’t give a shit what label you two have going on. I wanted you from the second I saw you, and you’re right here telling me you want me too.”

He jerks me closer, our hips lock, and his hand presses up my spine and clings to the back of my neck. A tiny whimper escapes out of my mouth.

“Tell me to stop,” he begs.

I shake my head.

“Please.” His face is close to mine, his voice thick in my ears.

I shake again and push my palms up to the thin fabric of his t-shirt, grabbing desperate handfuls. “I can’t. I want it. I want you.”

That’s all he needs to hear.

Cohen’s mouth finds mine and devours it. His lips are strong and entirely in control. He kisses the way he
is
, like he’s sure he’s going to give me what I want, and he so does. I part my lips and his tongue flicks in, licking at the top and bottom lip before it fills my mouth.

I moan and press against him, and he turns me with a quick spin, pinning my hips to the kitchen counter with his and twining his arms around my body. I feel…enveloped by him, snuggled into his warmth, and lit on fire by the rub of his body on mine.

I press against him and tighten my hands in his shirt, because if I don’t they’ll slide down his hard chest and under the waistband of his loose jeans. They’ll pull his face closer and knead at his neck. They’ll claw at his back and squeeze his ass. And once my hands go crazy over his body, I’ll start begging. I know myself so damn well. I’ll beg him to take me up to that king bed. I’ll beg him to rip his shirt off of my body and run his tongue over every inch of my skin. I’ll plead with him and try to convince him to do things that will fill us both to the brim with shame in the morning because I selfishly want this release tonight.

I know that, and that’s why I twist into him, drive my hips against the hard length of his cock, kiss him with my lips pressed to his and my tongue eager and quick, but I never move my damn hands. Because once I loosen my grip, I’ll freefall so hard and fast, neither one of us will have the chance to look back even if we want to. Even if we need to.

Everything he’s doing simultaneously satisfies me and lights me on fire with pure desire for more. I want exactly what I’m getting and exactly ten times more. And tripled.

I have total control over my hands, but Cohen doesn’t. His rove down to my breasts, which he squeezes and pulls at through the thin cotton of his shirt. My nipples harden under the rasp of his palms, and I arch my back. Both hands slide down to the white hem of the shirt we’re sharing. One hand slides under, skims over my belly, up my ribs, and hits the bare skin of my breasts. My neck goes loose and my head dips back. I can’t believe what a difference a fraction of an inch of fabric makes, but, good Lord, it makes all the difference in the world. His fingers find my nipples and tug at them until my breath explodes out in frenzied pants.

Just when I’m sure there’s nothing else he can do to make me crazier, his other hand slides to my back, traces down the line of my spine, and skirts under the line of my underwear, curving with quick possession over my ass.

“Cohen,” I gasp, and his fingers squeeze harder on my skin.

Like he can read my mind, he swings his arm around my waist just as my knees buckle under me. He has me on the cool granite of his counter and is tugging my underwear down farther, leaving me exposed and ready.

Ready for him

Ready for anything he wants to do, any depth he wants to sink to with me.

His mouth falls to my neck and he sucks at my skin with gentler and gentler pressure. His hands stop their persistent search of my skin and don’t pinch and pull in that way that makes my every pore scream with need.

I whimper because what the hell else can I do? He’s pulling away from something we never should have done in the first place.

His hand pops out from under the cotton of our shirt and his other hand drags out from under my waistband.

No, no, no, no!

“Cohen?” My voice shakes, and I just don’t care.

“Maren.” He drags me off the counter, his dark eyes flickering with a thousand emotions I can’t pinpoint. “Damnit, go to bed.”

“Come to bed,” I counter, my voice attempting bravado but undermined by a crazy shake.

“No.” He shakes his head, a piece of dark hair falling in front of his eye. I want to push it away, but, though he’s been massaging my tits and ass for twenty minutes, I don’t feel like that’s within my rights.

Weird doesn’t begin to describe this all.

“I want you there,” I say, finally letting my fists fall from his shirt. The material is puckered in an exploded star pattern where my hands had balled it tight.

“I want to be there,” he says, rubbing a hand over his face roughly. “But I can’t.”

I wrap my arms around my waist and nod, my eyes brimming with tears. What the hell did I just do? What did I screw up? And why,
why
, do I always manage to screw it up with the good guys, the ones I should hold onto tight?

“I get it,” I say, testing my first step back with my heel. I’ll take three of four careful steps backward before I whirl around and sprint to my room.

His room

Fuck.

Fuck me.

Can tonight get any worse?

“Maren?” His voice interrupts me when my toes are into my third step back. I’m almost gone.

“Yeah?” I don’t look at him because it’s hard enough to accept that I fucked up and he’s going to be gone. I don’t need to stare at what I’m losing.

“I want to get in that bed with you and…” He rolls his neck back on his shoulders, then stalks a few deliberate feet in my direction.

I’m a step and a half away from running to freedom, but I freeze ice-still in my tracks.

“I want to get in that bed with you,” he repeats, his mouth close to mine. Kissably close. “I want to. Good fucking God, Maren, I can’t even say what I want to do to you, but it’s every damn thing, and I can’t. I can’t while you’re with
him
.” He spits the pronoun, like even referencing Jason is too much for him. “I don’t want you to be some fuck…” He tips his mouth close to my ear, his hair tickling my cheek and says, “Though, make no mistake about it, I want to fuck you. Badly.”

I listen to the steady inhale and exhale of his breath, smell the salty bite of his skin, screw my eyes shut and wish I wasn’t such a heinous, loathsome coward, and then I turn on my heel and make good on my original plan.

I run away from Cohen, pound up the stairs, and slam the door loud enough that it should wake anyone, including my stupid boyfriend. Except he’s too sloshed to register the sound of his girlfriend escaping the arms of the man who’s going to steal her away.

I climb under the sheets that don’t, I decide finally, smell nearly enough like Cohen to satisfy me. I roll on my side and stuff a hand down low, rubbing with an intensity that’s ferocious and guilty. I want
him
, and I have no idea if our few minutes of stolen perfection in the kitchen got us closer to that goal or ruined my chances completely and forever.

“Cohen,” I groan, my voice so quiet, I’m not even positive I uttered the word I want to say every minute, every second.

When my body shakes and shudders with its final release, that’s the only thought I can register.
Cohen. My Cohen.

I clamp one hand tight over my mouth and listen, hoping to hear him turn the doorknob and come into the room with me, but it doesn’t happen. He doesn’t read my mind, he doesn’t rip apart the ridiculous fears that hold me back. He goes to sleep in his guest room and leaves me alone in his huge bed with memories of the perfect heat of his lips on mine.

Torturer.

A thousand times, I think about going into the room where Maren is sleeping, my t-shirt barely covering her sweet curves.

And a million times, my brain snaps and snarls at my hormones, insisting that it would be the dumbest idea ever. Which it would be.

What we did in the kitchen, what I said, what she said back, all that was bad enough. I need to get her out of my damn head, get all of them out of my damn house, and find a way to move on that doesn’t involve a girl who I work with on a daily basis and also happens to have a boyfriend.

Even if he is a fucking dickhole.

It’s not like I expected to have some incredible night on my shitty air mattress, but I guess I assumed I’d get more than a few minutes of sleep.

No such luck.

My body is rioting with need for Maren.

I loved being with Kensley, but it was never like this. I can’t get physically comfortable, and my mind sure as hell won’t shut down.

Like a middle-school kid, I take matters,
ahem
, into my own hands. When I’m done, I assume sleep will hit me, finally, but it’s not in the cards for me tonight. I’m now left with a feeling of half-fulfilled aggravation and a mind that’s wide awake and focused on the girl I can’t have.

It’s so stupid to even think of her.

I work with her. And she’s an amazing asset. There’s reason number one I need to keep my hands off.

Number two? He’s snoring in my office. Even if he is a total douche, he’s her damn boyfriend, and I shouldn’t be sinking to that level. There are plenty of unattached girls, so why am I screwing with one who has a boyfriend?

Third? I’ve known her for one day. One. Okay, maybe we’ve talked dozens of times, but that was mostly about furniture. And I get it
felt
like I knew her so much better than I did, but, the truth is, I just got out of a crazy emotional relationship built on my own hype, and I don’t need to construct a whole new one.

One day is not enough to get all physical with some girl. Even if her body curves in all the right ways. And her mouth tastes like sweet heaven. And the way she moans makes me harder and hornier than I ever imagined any single sound could.

All of that is physical rebound bullshit that I feel guilty as hell about.

What the fuck was I thinking backing her up against the counter while her boyfriend slept a few hundred feet away?

If I’m being honest, I was thinking that I wanted way more than I got in my kitchen. And if I give myself and extra shot of honesty, I’ll admit that I’m a dumbass for even thinking that way.

I’m up before the dawn, because I never went to sleep. I step out of the sliding glass doors and walk down to the sandy beach outside my house.

It hits me daily how lucky I am to have the ocean outside my house.

Though, the peace I usually get to enjoy is ruined by the ghost images of Maren walking with me on this sand, going too deep into that water, coming back into my house and my bed. So close to being the perfect scenario, and also so completely far.

I sit down, the wind whipping every cobwebbed, sticky thought out of my head, the crashing waves smoothing out my frayed nerves. I tilt my head back and draw the clean scent of ocean deep in my lungs.

“Hey.” A quiet voice shakes my pre-dawn calm.

“Hey.” I crane my neck and take a long look. A little piece of me is sad to see she’s back in her own clothes, my white t-shirt discarded. “Wanna sit?” I pat the sand at my side, and she plunks down, wringing her hands in front of her.

“Um, I’m…uh, I’m so sorry, I just want you to know that,” she says, her words gulping out nervously. “Last night? I was such a mess. I never drink that much. Lame excuse, right? So damn lame. Fuck. I know this sucks. I feel like a huge ass. For even saying this.”

She stops, and I can’t help it. I laugh. “Maren?”

“Yeah?” She looks at me, all eager blue eyes behind the dark streaks of hair whipping in the wind.

“Shut up, okay?” I smile, and her smile is shaky, but it’s there. “Just…I know what you mean. And don’t worry. We were both off our asses last night. Let’s just forget it, okay?”

Her eyes go wide, like she’s shocked, and I feel a deep, stupid regret.

“Yeah. Forget it,” she echoes uncertainly.

I want to say anything to break the tension, but Jason’s voice breaks through our awkward pause before I get a chance to. “Hey, Maren, get your ass moving! I’m golfing with my boss at noon, and I need a shower and some espresso. C’mon!”

We turn at the same time to look at the empty deck. Jason is already gone, back in the house. My house.

God, I want to beat the shit out of this guy so bad.

“Well, my prince awaits,” Maren deadpans, rolling her pretty eyes. “I hope it won’t…you know…be weird? Between us?”

“Weird,” I scoff, like it would be crazy to imagine us feeling weird about being nothing more than co-workers, now that we’ve kissed like we wanted to tear each other’s clothes off and have sex on my kitchen counter. “Why would it be weird? It’s gonna be just fine. It’s all gonna be fine.” I can’t believe how cool and collected my voice sounds.