Constructing Us (New Adult Romance) (16 page)

The next two weeks seemed to coast by.  Tragan and Andy spent nearly all their free time together, although Tragan’s work schedule lately had cut into many of the evenings he would otherwise spend at home.  It might seem counterintuitive since they did live together, but still… Andy missed him. 

Now as she towel-dried her hair, she heard Tragan come through the front door.  As she stepped out of her bathroom, their eyes met.
  Her face broke into a smile.  “Hello.  What are those for?”

“For you,” he said, coming closer, carrying a bouquet of daffodils and white daisies.

“I love them!”  She clutched them lovingly to her chest.  “You don’t have to get me flowers,” she said, not sure why she’d added that.

Tragan just shrugged casually and leaned down to kiss her hello.  “No big thing.  I passed the stand on the way home.  Saw them, thought you’d like them.”  Andy curled her fingers into his shirt as she kissed him, lingering her lips on his.  When they pulled apart, Tragan said, “Yellow’s your favorite, right?”

“Daffodils--yes,” she murmured happily, resting against his chest and letting herself get enveloped in his hug.  If only her head weren’t pounding tonight, she could really get lost in him.  But it was one of those splitting headaches that had gotten progressively worse over the past few hours.  She’d hoped a hot shower would help, but it hadn’t.  “I missed you.”

“Missed you, too, babe,” he said, tightening his arms around her.

“How much longer do you think this renovation will take?”

“Uh, we’re almost done.  So how was tutoring?”  The subject change seemed kind of abrupt, as if Tragan didn’t want to talk about work.  Though, why would he want to talk about a job that was causing him to work late almost every night for the past week?

“It went okay,” she replied, as Tragan followed her to the kitchen.  “Seth brought over his last couple of English papers and I read them.  He’s actually a really smart ki
d,” she continued, as she pulled out a glass vase and set it under the faucet.  “But I think I figured out the basic problem.”

Tragan leaned o
n the counter.  “What is it?”

“He’s not reading any of the books,”
she replied flatly and Tragan laughed. 

“Okay.  So
how can you fix that one?” he asked dryly.

“
Exactly
,” she said with a smirk.  After she arranged the flowers, she set the vase on the counter and reached into the cabinet for the Advil.  “Apparently he’s told his mom and Lex that he’s trying his best, but when I called him out on the BS in his papers, he admitted it.  Anyway, he promised he’d read the next book coming up--
The Age of Innocence
--and I told him to email me and we’d discuss it and figure out paper topics.  That’s really all I can do at this point,” she finished, as she opened the fridge and pulled out a water bottle.  “Want one?”

“No, thanks.  By the way…speaking of school,” Tragan said, standing straighter.  “I’ve been thinking about what we talked about--you know, about me finishing my degree.”

Andy’s eyes brightened.  “Yeah?”

“Yeah, I was thinking, why not do it soon, you know?  I’m half way done anyway.  I’m thinking I’ll enroll in classes part time.
  So I can still work during the day and do the school thing at night.”

“Oh, my God, that’s great!” Andy said enthusiastically.

“You think?” he said, eying her askance as if double-checking.

“Of course!  If it’s important to yo
u then you need to do it.  Once you have the degree, you have it and you’re done--so, yes, you need to do this,” she told him firmly.

Smiling at her, he stepped closer and put his arms around her waist.  “Well, I just wanted to run it by you, because…you know…
I didn’t want you to miss me too much.”

“Hmm, okay, that’s
a valid concern,” she admitted with a flirtatious little smile.  “Hey, this will be fun--if I get into a master’s program around here, we’ll both be students!” she said as she shook three pills into her hand. 

Tragan looked down
at Andy’s palm which was nestled between their bodies and lowered his eyes with slight concern. “Hey, you feel okay?”

“Just a bad headache tonight.”

“Then you should be in bed,” he suggested, taking her by the shoulders and turning her around.  Nudging her toward her room, he added, “Go to sleep.”

With an affronted laugh, Andy
said, “Excuse me, Bossy.  I’m not tired.”

He was still gently nudging her forward as he said,
“Well, I was going to shower and then just watch the basketball game.  Want to watch with me?”

Not meaning to, Andy grimaced
, then glanced back at him.  “That may be the worst headache remedy I’ve ever heard.” 

Sardonically, Tragan
tsked and shook his head.  “You and your basketball hate…”

“I’ll probably just read,” Andy told him as they both
crossed the threshold into her room.

“Won’t reading make your headache worse?
Even I know that.”

“Well,
I’m not tired!” she insisted with a hand on her hip.  “What do you want me to do?  Just stare up at the ceiling, singing ‘99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall’?  Actually…” she realized aloud, “that may be the
second
worst remedy.”

With a half-grin, Tragan
gently squeezed her shoulders.  “Okay, how about this?  What if I read to you a little and you close your eyes and try to rest?”

“
Really?
” Andy said, surprised.  “You’d do that?”

“Sure, why not?  I
can
read, you know.”

With a giggle, Andy
climbed into her bed and settled under the covers.  “All right, great!  That is so sweet of you!  This’ll be fun--you’re sure you don’t mind?”

“W
hy would I mind?  You’re my girl,” he stated simply, then walked closer to her towering landscape of books.  “So which one do you want me to take?  I hope you’re not going to say this one,” he mentioned, lifting up a fat, weathered edition of
Shakespeare’s Early Plays
. 

“Actually…”
  Andy leaned over to pull open her nightstand drawer.  “I started a new book last night.”  As Tragan sat down on the bed, she handed it to him.  For a second, he just looked at it--until memory dawned, the title suddenly familiar.  “So your mom and I will have something to talk about next time I see her,” Andy explained, nestling into her pillow and waiting for Tragan to join her.

Climbing up and settling beside her
with a sigh, he said, “
Seducing the Billionaire Earl’s Pregnant Bride
, huh?”

“
I picked it up at Barnes and Noble yesterday.”

Tragan wedged Andy’s
circular accent pillow between his neck and the headboard so he was more in a sitting position, as Andy snuggled in close to his chest.  “All right,” he said and began leafing through pages.  “Where should I start?”

“Let’s see…oh!  I remember.  I left off a
t the part when the earl sees Lady Olivia across a crowded ballroom and thinks, ‘He’d had hundreds and hundreds of women before, but no one had ever made him feel like
this
.’”

“Oh, brother,” Tragan muttered
with a raspy chuckle.  Then he stopped short and glanced at Andy with a slight expression of dismay.  “Hundreds and hundreds?  Really, this is what my mother likes to read?”

Arching up, Andy kissed Tragan’s scratchy cheek, then his lips, before
finding the page and tapping her finger on the book.  “Quit stalling,” she said with another giggle.

“Fine, I’ll read it.  But only for you.”

Chapter Thirty-two

“Yo, Andaline!”

Narrowing her eyes, Andy stepped out of her bedroom the following morning.  She saw Tragan walking across the living room, pulling a clean tee shirt over his head.  “You did not just call me that,” she said with a warning look.

When Tragan grinned confidently,
he looked even cuter, and right now it only added to the sheer sex appeal that stole her breath.  Tragan’s face was newly shaved and his hair still wet and messy from his shower.  The passing glimpse Andy had just gotten of his stomach reminded her to curse that stupid headache she’d had the night before.  “Actually, I did,” he said smugly.  “And I enjoyed it.”  He darted a glance toward the floor.  “Oh, yeah, I forgot there was a rug there now.”

“Are you sure you like it?”
Andy asked hopefully, referring to the chenille area rug she’d purchased at Home Goods the day before.  It was white with a yellow stenciled rose etched prominently in the center.  Since the rose design was light and singular, she hoped that, overall, the rug was clean and simple without being too feminine.

“Yeah, it’s nice,” Tragan replied generically, but she wasn’t entirely sure he meant it.

“I thought it was bright and cheerful,” she said, subtly trying to influence Tragan’s opinion.  “And it goes perfectly with the new throw pillows.”  Maybe she was laying it on too thick now.   

Tragan
just shrugged and said, “Sure, whatever you want, babe.  It looks great.”  Andy’s heart kicked up as she felt his hands come to rest on her hips.  “Listen, do you need a ride to your sister’s today?”

“No, I’m going to take the bus
. I want to hit Shadow Books on my way over to Emma’s house.  It’s a used bookstore hidden on a tiny side street near Comm. Ave,” she explained, figuring that Tragan, like most people she knew, had never heard of it.

“
Alone?  I thought you and your sister were doing girl stuff all day.  Isn’t shopping part of ‘girl stuff’?”

Unable to keep her hands to herself, Andy coiled her arms around Tragan’s n
eck and pressed her body closer.  “Correction,” she replied, “we’re doing gender-neutral stuff all day.  Emma needs help painting Jake’s room--that’s the big thing--and then we were thinking of trying this new French bistro in Newton.  My mom’s watching Jake and Ben till tonight.  And no, Emma isn’t a fan of Shadow Books.  First of all, I think the owner has a crush on her, because every time she’s gone in with me, he sort of follows her around.  He doesn’t act creepy or anything, but he trips over himself trying to talk impressively about literature.”

“And I guess s
he doesn’t like that?” Tragan asked with a sardonic expression.

“No,” Andy agreed, shaking
her head.  “Emma’s very low-key.  Besides that, there was another time that she was there, flipping through a book and found a bookmark inside.  When she pulled it out she discovered that it was actually somebody’s folded-up prescription for herpes medicine.”  Tragan winced as Andy finished, “I guess whoever donated the book forgot to shake it out first.”

“Man…”

“I don’t think Emma has wanted to go browsing there ever since.”

“Okay, so
the bus it is,” Tragan remarked glibly.  “By the way,” he began and inched up closer, “this insanely hot girl I know has a birthday coming up in three days.  Any idea what I should get her?”

“Um, n
o,” Andy said noncommittally, but with a somewhat sheepish grin.  “Whatever you think.”

Tragan tipped his head toward the ceiling. 
“C’mon, Andy.  Don’t make a guy guess; you could end up with the new Madden.”

She had to laugh.  “
God, no.  Fine, okay, um…how about a cookbook?  Maybe some type of Asian cuisine? I’m trying to push myself.  Oh!  Also, don’t forget, my mom’s having a birthday dinner at her house next week.  I want everyone to meet you.”

“Of course.
I’d never miss your party.  Though your mom already met me, remember?”

“Not as my boyfriend,” Andy said.

“Does she know yet?  About you and me?”

Guiltily, Andy bit her lip.  “Not yet.  She’s just about finished reeling over losing Brad.  I didn’t wa
nt to spring anything on her too soon.”

“Don’t you think your sister might have told her anyway?”

“No, Emma wouldn’t do that.  She knows I’ll handle it.  Anyway, I’m going to tell my mom about us before the dinner, I promise.”

“Okay,” Tragan agreed casually
and lowered his head to kiss her.  As she kissed him back, Andy felt her pulse quicken and body temperature rise.  Her fingers curled into the collar of his shirt, as she softly moaned into his mouth, craving more of him.  His hands roamed lower, settling possessively on her butt.  When their lips broke apart, Tragan said, “I’m obsessed with your ass.  Have you noticed that?”

“No,” Andy replied honestly.  She expelled a frustrated sigh and rested her forehead against his chest.  “Stupid headache last night,” she mumbled into his shirt. 

“How are you feeling today?” Tragan said suddenly.  “All better?”

“Y
es, I’m fine,” she assured him, breathing in his scent. “Just wish we had more time now.  But I told Emma I’d be there by ten.”

Tragan didn’t pull away. 
“You’re right, I guess we don’t have time,” he admitted, his voice huskier.

Mutely, Andy nodded--though she didn’t pull away, either.  After a moment, she said, “Well…how fast can you be?”

At that, Tragan gave a deprecating grin, tipping her face toward his. “You don’t want to know.”

“Hmm,” Andy said a
fter a moment, running her hands down his chest and walking him back toward the armchair. 

Next
, she ran her hand on his crotch, assertively stroking his cock through his jeans.  Feeling it hard and full turned her on even more, and sent heat pulsing between her legs.  “Andy…” he whispered thickly, grasping for her ass again. 

“Maybe we don’t have time for
everything
…”  Impatiently, she unbuttoned his jeans and jerked his zipper open--before nudging him to sit down.  Tragan complied automatically, falling into the chair and gazing at her with blatant desire.  “…but I can’t help myself right now,” she finished in a breathy, aroused voice, before dropping to her knees.

“
Andy
,” Tragan sighed again, sliding his fingers into her hair and groaning as her lips touched his naked cock.  His eyes closed as she took him inside her mouth.  He was already rock-hard and throbbing.  With a soft moan, she sucked him a little harder, while continuously running her tongue on him.  “Jesus, Andy…” he rasped, sounding completely lost.

She kept going until he was nearly panting. 
“Do you like that?” she asked flirtatiously, knowing the answer. 

“
Yes
,” he whispered hoarsely.  “God, baby, suck me like that…”

I
nstead of sliding his cock back in her mouth, she licked the tip, swirling her tongue lazily--suggestively--until Tragan’s fingers tightened in her hair and he made a rumbling sound of arousal as he pushed his hips forward, trying to bring himself deeper into her mouth.  She readily took the hint, burying her head in his lap, taking him so deep that he touched the back of her throat.  Tragan went crazy for that, pumping his hips, twisting his hand in her hair, and muttering guttural pleas for more.  Desperately aroused, Andy moaned as she gave him what he wanted.  Until, abruptly, Tragan set a hand on her shoulder.  “Baby, I’m gonna come,” he warned in a rushed voice.

When Andy’s eyes
traveled up, she found Tragan looking helplessly down at her, his dark eyes intense, savage.  Though his warning was considerate, she ignored it and drove him in as far as she could take him.  Her eyes slid closed as she sucked and licked him aggressively--until Tragan groaned loudly, shuddering as he climaxed and pulsing relentlessly into her hot, hungry mouth. 

“Oh, man,” Tragan
breathed afterward, slumping against the back of the chair. 

After a dazed second or two,
Andy licked her lips.  With a dreamy sigh, Andy rested her cheek against his thigh.  “That will have to hold me over till later.”

He gave a weak-
sounding chuckle at that.  “C’mere.”  Pulling her up, she eagerly climbed into his lap and settled against his chest.  Still breathing raggedly, Tragan buried his head in her neck and murmured, “What am I going to do with you?”

Smiling contentedly
, Andy replied, “Like I said…later.”

~

“Holy shit!  What the hell happened?”

“What?”
Tragan said, confused, as the front door swung shut behind his friends.  Bardo and Matt were traipsing in behind Pellican--who spun his head around, still expressing his alarm.  “It looks like a bomb hit!”

Tragan
reacted with a scoff.  “What are you talking about?”

“Um,
hello--yellow pillows?  That rug? 
Flowers
on the coffee table now?” Pellican yelped.  Suddenly he began sniffing the air.  “And what’s that overpowering girly smell in here?”

With a brusque laugh,
Matt said, “I think you might’ve already answered that.”

Pellican’s eyes grew wider at the revelation.  “Wait, the flowers are
real
?  That’s not even some Pottery Barn shit?  Oh, man, I’m pretty sure that’s even worse.”

“
So I bought Andy some flowers,” Tray said defensively.  “So what?”

“What did you get
her flowers for?” Bardo asked curiously.

Because I love her
was Tragan’s immediate thought. “Because I felt like it.”

Bardo said,
“I have to say, Tray, this place really has…”  He made a mystical sort of motion with his fingers.  “…a woman’s touch.”  Then he clapped Tragan on the arm.  “It’s nice, bro.”

Pellican shot Bardo a disbelie
ving look.  “Dude--there’s a giant yellow rose in the middle of the floor.”

Briefly Bardo followed his friend’s gaze toward the area rug, but seemed preoccupied with something else
entirely.  Shaking his head, he remarked, “Man, I can’t believe Tray has a girlfriend and we don’t.”  Then he looked from Matt to Pellican and said, “What are we doing wrong?” 

“Speak for yourself, Bardo,” Pellican
was quick to reply.  “I’ve got plenty of ladies.”

“In
Boston
?”

“What I mean is, I know lot
s of chicks who’d be interested in a relationship--if
I
was interested.”

“Well, okay, but you’ve failed to produce
any of them--ever,” Bardo mentioned offhandedly.

“
They’re very private people, okay?”

“All right, ass
-clowns,” Matt interrupted, rolling his eyes and slicing his hand across the air.  “Enough.  Can we get started?”  He turned his head toward Tragan.  “Tray, you said we have a lot to do here, right?”

“Yes.  Luckily Andy will be out all day so we have time to set everything up.  I was able to get her sister’s number off her phone last week, and she agreed to keep her busy for me.  We have till seven-thirty, then I
’m leaving to go pick Andy up and bring her back here.”

“Should we get the thing out of my truck yet?”
Matt asked.

“No, no, first we have a ton of stuff to do here,” Tragan said. 
“All right, so--”

“Oh, my God,
where’s the Xbox!” Pellican blurted, shooting a panicked look in the direction of the television.  “The Playstation?  The Wii?  Holy shit, where are the consoles?!”

“They’re
still in the cabinet there,
relax
!” Tragan barked.  “You just need to slide the doors open when you want to play something.”

With a blatant sigh of relief, Pellican
clasped his chest.  “Dude, they should always be in plain view.”

“I hate to agree
,” Bardo chimed in, nodding and offering an apologetic look, “but it’s true.  A guy wants to
see
his gaming options as soon as he enters someone’s domicile.”

“‘Domicile’ now?”
Matt echoed, sounding mildly amused.

“It means ‘home,’” Bardo explained.  “I’m trying to expand my vocabulary.”

“Fine, fine, I’ll take the Xbox out later,” Tragan interrupted just to appease them. 

“So I don’
t get it,” Pellican declared, continuing with the obnoxious tone he’d arrived with today.  “Is the theme of this place now: ‘I’m so happy Andy’s having sex with me, I’ll let her do whatever she wants to my bachelor pad’?”

Now Tragan was pissed.
 

“Shut
the hell up, Pellican,” he said in a sharp tone.  “Either help or go.  But don’t say another fucking word about Andy.”  The room was rendered uncomfortably silent for a moment.  Tragan didn’t lose his temper often, but if he did, he could glare right through you and he wouldn’t back down.  And his friends knew that.  “Are we clear?” he added, looking confrontationally at Pellican.