Dolce (Love at Center Court #2) (18 page)

I felt my grin grow wide, and I didn’t even turn my face.

“I’ve wanted this for a while, a long while,” he said, and began kissing me again.

My hand trembled as it finally landed on his bare back. It roamed all over his hard muscles, my nails lightly scratching his smooth skin.

“Harder,” he said on a moan, and I obliged.

I felt him slide my bra strap down, and his hand caressed my tattoo. It made me glance at his chest, and when I saw my name, nerves sprouted like weeds all over again.

My name is on his chest
.

I couldn’t think on it for long because suddenly my bra was off and my nipple was in Blane’s mouth, and my pelvis was rocketing off the bed.

“Oh my God,” I think I said. I couldn’t be totally sure, but it sounded something like that.

As he sucked and licked and nipped, I moaned, loud moans I didn’t think I was capable of making.
Porno-worthy moans
. I rolled my eyes at myself, but I couldn’t stop the moans if I tried.

His fingers wrapped behind my head and tangled in my curls. He held me close, his thumb leisurely grazing the nape of my neck. I didn’t think this was an erogenous zone, but let me tell you—it is.

Blane’s lips left mine, but they didn’t leave my skin as he slid down my body. He nipped at my collar while he plucked at my nipple with his finger. Then he blew warm breath on the spot, causing my nipple to pucker even harder. He sucked on one and then the other before traveling farther down.

I wasn’t sure he should be going down there like that on me, and I shrieked out his name on a moan.

He stopped tracing my belly button with his tongue and looked up. “You know I’m a Southern boy?”

“Blane, seriously, I’ve never done that.”

“Even better. I’ll be a perfect Southern gentleman.”

I squeezed my eyes shut as I felt him sliding my pants down my thighs and pulling off my boots so he could finish the job.

He crawled back up my body, planting a gentle kiss on my mouth, but his lips didn’t stay there long. They trailed over my stomach, latching onto my hips, and caressing my sensitive skin while holding me steady with his hand. I was hot and cold, my skin on fire from his touch yet chilled where he abandoned. His tongue continued to swirl over one hip while he lightly squeezed the other, although my hip bones weren’t prominent like other girls’. I had hips, soft ones, and Blane’s lips and fingers were worshiping them.

Pushing aside my own insecurities, I squeezed my eyes shut and pretended I was the supermodel he made me feel like I was.

I blew out a long breath as the tip of his tongue neared the juncture of my thighs, spreading warmth to where I was already blazing. His breath followed the wetness of his tongue, coming out in pants along my prickled skin. I tried to still myself, but my hips rose and reached for his mouth.

“Oh my God, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that,” I whispered, ashamed and more than a little embarrassed.

“I liked that a whole hell of a lot, Cate,” he said just before his tongue landed on my hot spot.

He swiped over my clit, and I’d never felt such sensation in my life. My spine tingled and my toes curled with tension. His finger entered me, hitting another spot, this one inside me, and when he flicked it, every last inch of me shot off the bed.
The G-spot.

My legs went rigid as his tongue made love to my clitoris—teasing, tormenting, and testing my patience. I wanted it harder and rougher. I needed it slower, to last longer. I craved it all.

I turned my head toward the pillow as my knees began to shake, and my hair fell over my face. A blast of exhilaration hit me, and I screamed Blane’s name as my orgasm ran wild through my body.

His tongue rode out the waves rippling through me, caressing each one out of me, and lapping up my orgasm until I finally lay spent and happy on the bed. He crawled back up, keeping his weight on his forearm, and lifted his finger to his mouth. He licked it partially clean and then brought it to my lips.

“Open,” he said, and I did. Wanton and desperate, I opened wide and licked his finger clean of my own juices.

And I loved every fucking second.
Like a whore in a movie
.

“Hey, what’s wrong?”

Too embarrassed to share my thoughts, I shook my head. Turning my face away, I sought refuge in the pillow again, thankful my hair provided cover.

“Huh-uh.” Blane gently turned me to face him. “What’s wrong? Did I do something you didn’t like? Did I hurt you?”

He frowned at me, making little crinkles form beside his eyes. Using his free hand, he shoved his hair behind his ear, and since it was damp with sweat, it stuck.

I shook my head again.

“Cate, talk to me. Please.”

“It’s just . . . that was so dirty.”

“What?” He rolled off me and tucked me into his side, pulling me close, my boobs smashing into his rib cage.

“It’s just I’ve spent the last few years all determined to be some champion of women’s issues, and here I am, no better than some ball baby, coming on your hand and licking it off. I should be disgusted with myself. I’m no better than a two-bit actress who takes her clothes off for one of those porn flicks.” Ashamed, I buried my face in his chest, not wanting him to see my tears.

“Hey.” He lifted my chin with his finger and swiped over the tears with his thumb.

“You’re not some two-bit actress, Cate. You’re an adult, a woman who likes a man, and I like you back. And we’re being intimate with each other. The door is locked and we’re enjoying each other’s bodies in the privacy of my room. That’s healthy, normal, and right.”

He kissed my forehead.

“I think I should go.”

“Listen, I don’t want you to go. We can put our clothes back on and hang out. We don’t have to go any further; I respect what you want.”

“I’m so confused,” I said with more conviction. “I should go.”

“I’m not gonna force you to stay, but I want you to—”

I stood and snatched up my clothes, yanking them on as I averted my face.

“I have to go,” I said again, wallowing in my own self-recrimination.

“Cate, wait. Please?”

Blane rolled off the bed and threw on a pair of sweats he grabbed from the floor. “I understand you’re working through a lot, but don’t leave like this.” He cupped my cheeks and pressed a kiss to my lips. “I like you, so leave like that. Take your time and think about what I said. But—”

“No buts,” I blurted.

“Oh yes, buts.” He lightly tapped my ass. “I’m driving your butt home,” he said, snagging a T-shirt and his keys.

Catie

O
n Monday, I mentally chastised myself through all my morning classes.

Stupid, fucking girl. How could you fall for the boy, the class man-whore of all the men out there? You’re no better than the same girls you sit in class and despise.

The very class I was sitting in, the one where Professor Stanwick stared me down from behind her readers.

To make matters worse, some other part of my psyche decided to take issue with the browbeating.

But he’s a good guy, gentle and caring. Blane is the first person to see me, touch me, make me feel like a woman.

I dropped my head into my hand and tried to put all my bullshit thoughts out of my mind. Stanwick was going on about something in the news. Today’s lesson was on the guy who started
Girls Gone Wild
.

“He took advantage of young women,” she said, “some inebriated or under the influence, who wanted to be celebrities. He claims he had their permission, but he’s no better than the guy who hosts the
Casting Couch
series. In fact, our very own Catie is doing a paper defending the likes of this man. Isn’t that right?”

I lifted my head and shot up in my seat. In an instant, my inner guilt shifted from bemoaning my love life to second-guessing my pig-headed ideas.

“I-I’m sorry,” I stammered, “but to defend him or people like him wasn’t my intention. The paper is exploring the women who get involved and why.”

And I still have to go to my internship. What a shit day.

Stanwick narrowed her eyes on me. “There are so many other avenues for women to make a living for themselves, I can’t for the life of me understand why you would subscribe to defending those women.”

“
Those women
don’t have the same choices we have. Many of them can’t afford higher education,” I shot back.

“Stand up, Ms. Presto,” Stanwick ordered. “Listen here, missy. This is a top-ten women’s studies program. We don’t support pornography and we certainly don’t defend it. We also don’t stand by our students giving dating advice on the air, or canoodling in the corners with student athletes who do nothing but sexualize women. We especially do not support these antics being splattered all over Twitter.”

Not done tearing me to shreds yet, Stanwick gave me the deathblow. “You are dismissed from this class for the rest of the trimester. You were not as mature as I believed you to be when I allowed you to take this class. You may see the counselor to look into other courses or majors. Perhaps cinematography, with your strong interest in pornography?”

“What? You can’t do that!”

My cheeks burned as my classmates stared at me, enjoying the showdown. Heat seeped to my scalp as a combination of Italian and Cuban anger licked at my belly, but I shoved it down. This was not the time for a temper tantrum. God, Stanwick was being flat-out unreasonable standing there with her arms crossed in front of her chest.

“Yes,” she said smugly. “I can and I just did. Good-bye, Miss Presto.”

She turned and effectively dismissed me as she went back to her lecture, tapping her pen on the SMART Board, refusing to glance my way.

With my shoulders hunched, I snatched up my things and walked up the aisle between the theater-style seating of the classroom to the exit, hanging my head like a dog sent to the corner. My vision suddenly blurry, I made my way out into the damp day. With an hour until I was due at the station, I slumped onto a spot under a tree, the ground cold on my ass as I dug my heels into the soft grass. I tilted my head back against a tree and sat crisscross applesauce, and closed my eyes.

Images of myself as a young girl, pudgy and in pigtails, flashed behind my eyelids. Memories of running through Grandma Cee’s yard with Dad chasing me and calling “you’re it” played on a continuous loop. We’d play until I was exhausted, and then my dad would toss me over his shoulder and carry me into Grandma’s kitchen. She’d put out my very own cookie table—almond biscotti dusted with powdered sugar, ladylocks, mini cheesecakes, chocolate chip cookies, and a glass of milk.

We’d sit and laugh until my mom came and picked me up. Then she’d raise holy hell.

“Cee, you’re making her even fatter! Don’t you see, she’s short and busty like your side?”

My dad would shush her and whisper in my ear,
“You’re so beautiful, mi Caterina. Don’t you listen to her.”
He’d kiss my cheek and lift me up from the chair to spin me around
. “See you next week, baby doll.”

Every time, my mom would grab my hand and waggle it in the air.
“Even her fingers are pudgy,”
she’d say
.

“Glory, stop,”
my dad would yell at her.

She’d rush me out of there and my poor dad would always yell,
“Kiss Grace and Cedes for me.”

Now as I sucked in the chilly air and breathed out tiny puffs of smoke, I yearned to go back in time. Memories continued to spin in my mind. My mom leaving for a week with a guy named Gus, and then coming back to move us out of my dad’s house. Her poisoning my sisters against my dad, and the way she hated how I wanted to spend time with Dad and Grandma Cee.

My lousy mom went from rich man to rich man, bleeding them of money for Botox and plastic surgery, and maxing out their credit cards. My sister Grace chased married men, and my younger sister, Cedes, made a life out of being clueless. I was the one who was supposed to be smart and successful, the one who was proud of my feminine curves and big brain.
The outcast.

Stanwick was right . . . I should be ashamed. I had no right aspiring to be a warrior for feminism when I was nothing better than a hussy, falling for the college athlete who would make tons of cash as a pro.

I tugged at my hair in frustration. Why did I have to repress my desires to be a feminist? Couldn’t I have a career and sexual fantasies at the same time? Were all female CEOs celibate?

I stood up and brushed off my ample backside before I made my way to Starbucks, avoiding Mean Beans and who might be lurking there. I was determined to take a hard look at my life, to stay away from Blane and his allure, and to prove my professor wrong.

But I didn’t know how the hell I would do that. Stanwick was a big powerful surge in the feminist movement while I was barely an electrical volt, but she didn’t get it. Those porn actresses and strippers didn’t have choices like she had, or like my female classmates and I did. No, they were stuck in a no-win situation where they believed opportunities like the
Couch
and being in front of the camera gave them a semblance of control. At least, that’s what I assumed.