Forever in Blue Jeans (16 page)

The memory of the moment Alicia told him she didn't want to marry him, the feel of his world finally crashing down around him after he'd seen the cracks in the walls for so long still had the power to make his chest constrict. "No. She was in
lust
with me. She loved me but not the way I loved her. I wanted to get married, her family wanted us to get married, all our friends thought we would get married. In the end, though, we didn't. We didn't want the same things out of life."

"You wanted the white picket fence, and she wanted what?"

"Money. Her career. Hot Sex. A roommate. A friend. Anything but the white picket fence."

"You didn't figure that out in college?"

Cort shook his head and finally reached for his coffee, needing to do something with his hands. "Things changed after she was offered a very coveted associate position at a big law firm down in Denver. We went our own ways about two years after school, but we'd been over long before we actually split up. She moved away from Boise when I brought up marriage again. I went about it the wrong way. Told her I'd go with her if she'd marry me. She walked out the door without a word, and I haven't seen her since."

"And that put you off women?"

He laughed without humor or lightness. "No, I love women."

"Okay." She smiled and reached for her cup, a spoon, and the sugar cubes. "She put you off trying to find the kind of woman you wanted?" She lifted the cup and took a sip, spitting it back in almost immediately. "What in the hell did you do to the coffee?"

There was humor in his laugh this time. He took a sip of his own coffee and nearly spit it across the room. God, it was awful. "No idea."

"Tastes like mud."

She made a face and stuck her tongue out as though it could rid itself of the taste. He understood completely. He took their cups and dumped them in the sink at the same time she got up and grabbed a couple of beers from the fridge. She popped the top on both and set one down for him on the table and took a long swig of her own.

He was grateful and tipped his bottle toward her before taking a long pull. He sat in the chair again.

"So? Gonna answer my question? She put you off trying to find who? Suzie Homemaker?"

He flinched. She faced him with that pointed stare again, and he put off the answer some more with another swallow of beer, smiling inside at the smooth slide down his throat. He really didn't like the name brand domestic ones. They were almost as bad as that pot of coffee. He called it ‘domestic swill' yesterday. The small microbrewery ones, though, like the one she'd just given him, he enjoyed trying those out. "Something like that, I guess." He tilted the beer and looked at the label. It was from a small town in Texas and he'd have to make sure to remember the name. He'd like to try it out again.

"Something like that you guess?"

She sounded as though she didn't believe him anymore than he believed himself. "I don't know, Blue. I just know that after she left, I lost the desire to settle down. She was supposed to be the one, and it blew up in my face."

"Do you believe there's just one someone meant for everyone?"

"I don't know that either." Two more swallows and he'd have to get another beer in order to finish this conversation. He rubbed a hand along the back of his neck, trying to ease the tension building in his muscles. He didn't do shit like this. Not anymore at least. Not since Alicia. He didn't pour out his heart, and it was grating on him.

"And what about me?"

His gaze flew to her face. "You?"

"Yes. Because of her, you gave up on finding love again. What did I do?"

"You left."

"Yes, we've established that. What did it make you want to do?"

"Do you want the truth?"

"Yes."

Could he give her the truth? He scooted his chair closer to her, invading her space. She watched but she didn't move to get away. "I wanted to find you. I spent all day after I woke up looking for you. I scoured Savannah from one end to the other looking for you. I sat in that goddamn bar all night hoping you would walk in. I stayed one more night hoping you'd come back to the room."

She looked surprised, and for the first time in five years, something cracked in his chest.

"You did? You did all that for me?"

"I wanted you. I wanted you in my bed again. I wanted your smile as you straddled me. I wanted your laugh when I tickled you unexpectedly. I wanted to hold you against me and listen to you whisper your dreams to me. I wanted to hold you while you slept. I wanted everything, Blue, but you never came back, and each hour that passed, each minute that ticked by, I became more and more angry at you, at her."

"At least I'm not the only one."

"You didn't have to leave."

She looked down, fiddled with her fingers. "Do you ever wish it had just been a normal one night stand? That it had been nothing more than sex?"

He didn't hesitate in answering. "Not for a second. Do you?"

"No." One corner of her mouth lifted in a smile when she lifted her gaze back to his., then she raised her eyes back to his. His cock twitched. He'd known he was getting hard again. The old anger fueled his lust, and he was doing the best he could to ignore it. Now that she'd drawn conscious attention to it, he couldn't any longer.

His cock filled almost immediately and stood proud, slightly to the left. His gaze dropped to her nipples, and the longer he stared at them, the harder they became. Two could play that game.

If he looked lower, though, between her legs where he wanted to bury himself, he'd be a lost man.

He dragged his focus back to her face. No, they had to get through this once and for all.

They needed to move on or move away. He couldn't work on her house and be near her without wanting her. He couldn't stay in the area and work with his friends without wanting her.

Whatever the hell hold she had on him, it was there to stay. Five years hadn't done anything but make the ache worse, and seeing her now, again, more beautiful than before...

"Cort?"

There was softness, a little pleading, a question. He had to ignore that too. Dammit, she wasn't making this easy. "Why did you leave, Blue? Tell me why you left me."

She moved quickly, so quick he didn't have a chance to react other than to reach out and hold on to her as she straddled his thighs. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed herself, her clit, her lower belly against his cock. His fingers flexed on her waist, and he tried to push her back, push her to where he could see her face, see her eyes. Him, who was trying to avoid that directness earlier, wanted it now.

She buried her head in his neck and shook her head. She rubbed her body on his, slow undulations of her hips. It was one of the most erotic sensations he'd ever experienced. His arms slipped around her back and he just gave in, let her tease and torment them both. His anger was gone, at least for the moment, and he reveled in the feel of her, free of that pain in his gut.

"I think I fell in love with you that night," she whispered.

Cort's breath all but stopped in his chest, but he remained still, quiet, vowing not to change or stop a single thing going on between them.

"I didn't believe in love at first sight. I wasn't even sure I believed in romantic love at all. I only believed that love brought pain, and I didn't want that in my life." She shifted impossibly closer, as though she wanted to crawl right inside him. "I wanted to be the free spirit my aunt was. She never let anyone get close, not after her husband died. She'd loved him so much and hurt so bad when he was gone. I remember feeling that same way when my parents died. It was a different kind of love, but love just the same, and up to that point in my life, it was the only kind of love I'd know. When it was gone, it hurt. I hurt. I didn't want to feel that way again. I--"

"Blue, I--"

She shook her head again. "Please, Cort. You wanted to know. Please just let me talk." She licked his neck and kissed him softly until he nodded his acquiescence.

Cort tightened his hold on her, and the wetness of her sex left a streak of juice on his cock that slid in drops down his balls. He wanted to grip her ass and impale her to the hilt, rock her on his lap until they both came. Instead, he gently rubbed her back, kneading the muscles along her spine. She relaxed against him, and her pussy lips opened farther to wrap around his hardness, coating him in liquid heat.

Death. Of. Him. That's exactly what she was going to be if he didn't get inside her soon.

They could have this conversation that way, right? With him buried deep in her cunt? He felt sure they could, felt rather certain of it, in fact, but then she lifted her head and looked at him with tears glistening on her lashes.

Okay, so maybe not.

He raised his hands to her head, holding her face in his palms. His heart ached for her, for the woman who wasn't even sure love existed. How could such a beautiful spirit, such an open human being, be so scared of love? She, of all people, should embrace love, should be sensitive to it, move toward it, not run away from it.

He leaned forward and smiled as her eyes grew wider the closer his face got to hers. Her lashes fluttered closed, and he figured she was thinking he was going to kiss her. He would, but first he was going to taste her tears. With the tip of his tongue, he licked the droplet that fell from the corner of her eye. Just a light touch, but it was enough. That was when he kissed her.

He pressed his lips to hers and kissed her the way he'd witnessed his father kiss his mother a thousand times over the years. It was with love, with reverence, with tender concern. It wasn't a sexual kiss. It wasn't meant to entice or arouse, but when he pulled back, her hunger was staring back at him.

"Blue?"

"Do you want to love me?"

Cort was momentarily speechless and when he tried to speak, he sputtered and couldn't utter a single solid word. "Uh..."

"I'm not asking if you do love me. I'm asking if you
want
to love me. If you even want to try. I thought I didn't want to love you. All these years have gone by, and I didn't think I could possibly still feel the same way as I did the night I met you. You're here though, and I do. I still feel that way, I'm still in love with you."

"Blue, I--"

"Do you? Do you think you can possibly work out your anger and hurt and let me in? Do you think you could learn to love me?"

He couldn't imagine what it cost her to ask those questions, to put herself out on the ledge like that. He didn't have to imagine how it made her feel though. The more she talked, the more aroused she became until she was undulating, writhing in his lap. Her nipples rubbed against his chest, and her fingers flexed on his shoulders.

She widened her legs and angled herself differently and only slightly, but it was enough that her sex could ride the ridge of his erection. He wanted inside her, needed to be inside her, but this thing she was asking... "Blue, honey..."

"Please, Cort..."

She whimpered the words, pleaded with him, and he thought she'd been asking for his answer. That wasn't it at all, he realized, as she shuddered and shook in his arms, coming in his lap She kept rocking on him, against him, prolonging the orgasm flowing through her body.

She shifted, thrust her hips forward, hard, and lifted, rubbing her clit hood over the tip of his cock. He was done for. Sperm pumped through the shaft, and this time, he followed his gut and grabbed hold of her ass, pulling her into him, covering both their bellies in his semen.

Blue laid her head on his shoulder and sighed. "You don't have to love me, Cort, but I needed you to know that I love you."

"No, I don't have to,” he muttered into her hair. "But damned if I can stop myself."

Blue lifted her head just as suddenly as she'd laid it down. "What?"

"I do. I have since that night in Savannah, too. It happened before we even hit the hotel room. I knew I was a goner the second you laughed I was even happy about it. For the first time in years, I wanted someone. You. If I hadn't thought for sure you felt it too, I'd have never taken you to bed. There was something different about you and me and how I felt. It had been a long time and it blindsided me. In a good way. I didn't question it. I just went for it."

Blue's heart sank. "And then I left."

Cort nodded. "And then you left."

"Why?" she asked.

"Why what?"

"Why wouldn't you have taken me to bed?"

"One-night stands have never been my style. Even these last few years, the women... I was in relationships with them. Sex only, but we were always exclusive."

"That's why you didn't wish ours had been a normal one." She pressed her forehead to his.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

He looked up from under his lashes. He stared at her so long she wasn't sure he was going to say anything else or accept her apology. She did genuinely feel bad about leaving, and she could even put the argument out there that it had hurt her just as much to leave him as it seemed to have hurt him.

"I th--"

"Hey, B!"

Blue dropped her head to Cort's shoulder again and groaned as the front door slammed open and shut. Neil.

"I brought your car back and thought we could--Oh! Oh my."

"Go away, Neil," she said without picking her head up.

"Right. Gone."

"No, it's all right," Cort interjected. He nudged Blue backward a little, a deep red flush staining his cheeks. His cum was sticky as their abs slid apart.

She looked at him, reluctant to let the moment end, to let things go unsaid and unfinished yet again, but the resolve and shuttered look in his eyes told her things between them would have to wait. She scooted off his lap, and he was up and out of the kitchen before she could say anything.