0215543001348293036 vaughn piper oshea m.j. (22 page)

I was inside Rue.
Inside
. His smell was all around me—the scent of his shampoo, the warm vanilla of his skin from the lotion he used, and underneath it all, just
him
. Rue. I could barely see him in the glow from the alarm clock. But I could feel him. I felt him everywhere.

He placed his palms on my abdomen and carefully lifted his hips.

When he sank back down again, with the same deliberate, excruciating slowness as the first time, I didn’t even recognize the sound that came out of me. Something like a moan or a sob, a cry as if my heart was breaking and knitting itself back together.

Rue trembled above me and released a shuddery sigh. “Okay?” he asked.

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It took me three tries before I could answer, and even then I stammered over the word. “Y-yes.”

He moved again, and my entire body quaked at the sheer, unsurpassed pleasure of it. Every nerve ending was alive and roaring.

How could anything feel so good?

Because it’s Rue. Because it’s us, together. Because just the
thought of him makes my heart happy.

Yeah, that was it. He made me so unbelievably happy. And we were doing the most intimate thing two people could do together.

There, in the darkness, we were part of one another.

“Rue….”

Rue’s hands slid up my chest to my face as he leaned down to kiss me. It was a simple brushing of lips, a soft reassurance that he was there and he was with me. I wasn’t alone in this. “I’ll take care of you, babe,” he whispered against my mouth. “I’ve got you.” I closed my eyes and gave in to the urge to move my hips. Rue sat upright, and I pushed up into him, trying to remember to be gentle, go slow, but he was so snug and warm around me I couldn’t hold back for long.

Rue must’ve been ready for it. As I thrust up, he slammed down to meet me, a low groan breaking free of his throat. “
Yes
. Yeah, just like that.”

I lost myself in the feel of it, the sounds he made. It was amazing how well he fit me, how perfect he felt around me. I arched and he pressed, and together we fell into an exquisite rhythm that made my pulse race and raised a sheen of sweat on my skin. I wanted it to last, but I knew it wouldn’t. Couldn’t. My body was already tensing, and I could feel that sweet, aching pressure building in my pelvis.

“Erik, touch me.” Rue’s voice sounded agonized in the darkness.

“Touch me, touch me.”

I put my hands on his skin, trailed my fingertips along the column of his throat to his sternum, and then down over his flexing abdomen to the straining erection between his legs. He was thick and heavy against

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my palm, and I knew if I could see him, his cock would be that deliciously dark pink shade that deepened as he grew more and more aroused. It made my mouth water, made me wish I could take him in and suck and tease, see if he tasted as good as he looked. He always did.

Rue shuddered as I traced the ridge. When I wrapped my fist around him and started to stroke, he cried out and plunged down hard.

His inner muscles clenched around me, and for a second I thought I was going to die from how incredibly good it felt.

I gasped, the fingers of my free hand digging into the flesh of his hip. “
Rue
.”

“I’m with you, baby,” Rue panted. “I’m with you. Just… don’t stop.”

No. There wouldn’t be any stopping. I was so, so close, and I knew he was too. I worked his cock, stroking faster and faster, listening to the way his breathing sped up to match. He moaned my name as his cock pulsed in my hand, and I felt the warmth of his release strike my belly. That was all it took for me to lose it. My spine curved, my hips slammed up as I tried desperately to get even deeper inside him. I couldn’t hear, couldn’t think. All I could do was
feel
, and it was like that moment stretched into infinity.

Rue was with me the entire time. His head was on my shoulder, his body draped over mine. He trembled against me and whispered something I couldn’t understand, his lips brushing against the skin of my neck.

Lying there with him, wrapped together amidst tangled sheets, I knew I’d found where I belonged. I thought it probably should have been frightening—those feelings were so strong and so unlike anything I’d ever felt before. But I wasn’t afraid. He was with me, and as long as he was, there was no reason to be scared.

“Rue.” I touched his hair, ran my fingers through the silken strands. “Are you okay? I’m sorry. I tried to go slow.” The thought that I might have hurt him made my stomach churn. “D-did I hurt you?” Rue shook his head against my chest. “Not at all.”

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I couldn’t help but be nervous when I asked, “Was it good?” Rue drew away from me and sat up. I heard a click, and the light came on. It was on its lowest setting, so it didn’t make the room too much brighter than it already was. But it was enough for us to see each other clearly.

“
Erik
.” Rue reached out to my cheek. His face was a bit flushed, his mouth swollen and dark, the way it always looked after we kissed.

“I loved having you inside me.” He leaned down and kissed me softly, then snuggled into my side. His fingers traced a path across my stomach and stopped just above my pelvis. “God, I can still feel it, the way you
stretched
me….” Rue shivered a little. “You have absolutely nothing to worry about.”

He felt so warm and pliant against me. The Rue I saw in moments like these was so different from the usual Rue. Most times he was joking, or poking fun, or saying something that dripped with sarcastic humor. I didn’t mind that Rue. He made me laugh. He made me feel,
really
feel, something other than the fear and anxiety I’d known for so long. He gave me confidence. Since we’d met I’d done things I’d been too scared to do before. I took risks, stepped outside my comfort zone and straight into chaos. For him. But there was also something to be said about a gentle, loving Rue. A sweet and soft Rue who cuddled and gave me honey kisses and whispered naughty things into my ear in the dark.

I turned to face Rue and curled my arm around his waist, pulling him even closer. “I want to hold you like this every night. I want your smell on my pillows.”

“Mmm, I want that too,” Rue murmured sleepily as he tucked his face against my shoulder. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Should I turn the light back off?”

“Not if it means you have to move.” The words were distorted by a yawn.

“Okay.” I smiled and rested my face against his hair. Sleeping in the dark was overrated anyway.

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Chapter 12

Rue

IT WAS definitely spring—that one trembling moment when any edge was worn off the air, and it was all soft and balmy and gorgeous but not sticky and hot. I knew it wasn’t meant to last. I wished I was outside letting the sun wash over my face instead of sitting in one of my final weeks of class. At least it was almost over. And then I would (hopefully) find a regular job and quit the club and stay at home every night with my new little family. It was, ironically, all I wanted. A few years ago, if you’d have told me that my idea of the perfect Saturday night was a board game with Erik and Dusty, and then cuddling with my
baby
—of all things—while I watched a movie, I would’ve laughed.

Now I wished I had more time to spend with them.

At least we had a three-day weekend coming up for Memorial Day, and since the Tom Tom was usually so slow on long weekends, with everyone gone to the coast, Devon and I had agreed he would work both Friday and Saturday nights, and I would take the time off. I supposed I should’ve wanted to work, for the tips if nothing else, but I didn’t. The thought of three whole days in a row with my daughter and Erik was enough to make me giddy.

It wasn’t until I was walking out to the lot, where Erik was waiting with my car, that I got a flash of inspiration.
Why does
everyone else get to go to the beach for the weekend while we stay in
the city?
I wanted to feel sand in my toes, the warm breeze on my skin.

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I wanted to eat saltwater taffy until I felt like I was going to puke and walk up and down the boardwalk with Erik’s hand in mine, and Alice between us in her little stroller. I caught myself having those dreams that I’d never had before him—the ones of family and closeness and forever. Somehow a weekend at the beach seemed like an important part of that picture.

I WAS online looking up cabins and hotel rooms when Erik came out of the shower. He’d been working on his book all morning (which he still turned red over every time I brought it up, and blatantly refused to show me) and had forgotten to shower and probably eat as well. My guy totally needed a keeper. That was okay. I was happy to fill the position.

“What is that?” Erik asked, leaning over and slipping his hands under my shirt. He smelled all fresh and damp from the shower, and when he dropped a small kiss on my neck it made me shiver. I wondered if I’d ever stop having that reaction to his touch. We were well beyond the point where I’d gotten tired of everyone else in the past. I still couldn’t imagine it happening with him. Talking, kissing, touching, the everyday interactions that had gotten more and more familiar with each week that passed—I wanted
more
of them, not less.

I covered Erik’s hand with my own. “It’s a Rehoboth Beach cabin rental site. I thought it would be nice to go for the weekend. Take Alice swimming and get some sun. There are some cheap cabins still left a few blocks off the beach.”

Erik kissed my neck again. “I used to love going there with my parents.” He pointed at one of the cabins on the rental agency’s screen.

“How much is that one?”

“Four hundred for the weekend, but it’s two bedrooms. Maybe Dusty would want to come—and, um, Paul, right? That guy he’s been talking to. We could afford it then.”

“Call Dusty!”

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I was surprised by Erik’s enthusiasm. I’d actually expected an argument—I mean, I’d gotten an argument before about going to the
grocery store
, for Christ’s sake. But apparently since the beach was fun and familiar (and not somewhere I could nag him about eating his veggies), he was all for it. I wasn’t about to question his enthusiasm. I called Dusty, and he called Paul, and four days later we were crowded into Dusty’s station wagon, me driving and the other three singing along to the radio while Alice slept in her car seat between Dusty and Paul.

I liked Paul and liked him for Dusty, but I’d gotten an eye roll and a headshake when I asked him if they were getting serious. I think after all the grief Gary had put him through, it was probably still too soon for Dusty to really consider getting involved with anyone. But at least Gary was finally out of the picture for good. He’d gotten into a drunken bar brawl a few nights after he’d shown up at my apartment and nearly killed an off-duty police officer. Currently he was cooling his heels in jail while he awaited his trial, and I doubted he’d be able to make bail any time soon. Dusty was probably the last thing he was worried about, and we were all grateful for that.

Our cabin was quaint—and by quaint I mean tiny as hell—but I was too cheeseball happy to care. We were at the beach, just like I wanted, and everything was perfect. We spent the first day on the sand under a big rainbow umbrella. Erik had turned red when I brought it back from the store, but I just laughed and told him Rehoboth wasn’t a place where the rainbow would stick out. He kind of got the picture when we settled in the sand and he noticed two gay couples walking by. I guess he’d never noticed when he was younger. I’m guessing he never noticed much of anything that wasn’t in his own little world.

I watched Erik horse around in the water with Dusty and build a little sand fortress for a giggling Alice to knock down with her chubby white toes. I even had my bag of sand-crusted saltwater taffy that I happily ate one after another until my stomach ached in the most perfect way.

A few of my friends from town stopped by the blanket to chat or say hello. None of them had ever met Alice, so there was a lot of belly

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kissing and tickling. Most of them had a hug and a kiss for me as well, and were pleasantly surprised I’d managed to find a real boyfriend. I loved introducing Alice and Erik to my friends. It felt official somehow. I did notice Erik hovering closer and closer with every person who came up to us, but I liked that too. I snuggled into his side and dropped kisses onto his warm, sandy chest. The day was exactly how I’d pictured it should be.