Love on a Summer Night (17 page)

They didn’t need to talk about it.

He slid inside her, both of them still fully dressed, his belt rubbing against the back of her thigh as she hitched her leg around his hip, pulling him closer.

Her breath caught as he stretched her wide, filling her up and shoving all her thoughts right out of her head.

That ache. It was beautiful and perfect and not enough, never enough, because she wanted more. He pulled out, all but the tip, and that delicious rub of his cock at her entrance again made her gasp. Now she was stretched and more open for him than before, and when he thrust deep, it went all the way to her cervix.

Again he was bare inside her.

She clenched around him, wanting to hold on tight to this moment of being one.

And all of a sudden it was too much.

“Wait,” she gasped, rolling her hips, releasing him from her body.

He lifted up, and she was glad for the darkness. She didn’t want to see the look of confusion on his face. She turned, kissing his arm as she settled on all fours. Zander hesitated for a second, then slid her dress up her hips, baring her from behind.

She felt his fingers first. He found her still wet, still ready, because she wanted this…she just needed it to be sexy fun times with a friend.

She squeezed her eyes shut. What a joke. She was falling so hard, so fast, when she hit the ground she was going to shatter into a million pieces.

But she didn’t want it to be tonight. Or next month.

“What’s going on?” He tugged her dress down a bit and kissed her shoulder, his breath warm and steady there. His fingers still worked between her legs, keeping her warm there, too. Not steady, though. She wasn’t steady in the least.

So she didn’t answer, because what would she say? He was perfect and she wasn’t…

She bit her lip so hard she was pretty sure she’d just made herself bleed.

Thankful again for the darkness, she arched her back, sliding her wet slit messily against his hand. “Fuck me, Zander.”

“That’s what you want?”

“Yes.” Her heart slammed against her ribs. She wanted lots of things.
 

He probably didn’t have any clue how he looked at Eric. Looked at her. How loving and gentle and
ready
he was.

She didn’t deserve him. But she still wanted every amazing part, anyway. She was totally greedy for him, and not just the sex.

But right now, yes, she wanted sex. Just sex. No more feelings. She wanted him to obliterate all these thoughts and fears, and fill her with all the pleasure she knew they could make together.

She opened her mouth to tell him again what she wanted, and that’s when he practically lifted her off the couch by the hips and slammed home, his cock filling her to the point of ache, exactly as she’d demanded.

He was fucking her. Hard.

He set a blistering pace, all the nerve endings inside firing as he pistoned his hips. She stretched like a cat, rubbing her heavy, swollen breasts against the couch at the same time as she shamelessly presented more of her sex to him.

Filthy words flooded her mind. Things she wanted him to do to her. Things she wanted to do to him. Together. Apart, while the other watched. She swallowed a moan as his grip on her hips tightened, as he held himself deep inside her for a second, his thrusts getting more erratic.

He was fighting for control, too.

Good, she didn’t want to be alone in her insanity. She snaked a hand between her legs, meaning to touch herself and get herself closer to release, but then her fingers touched his balls and he gasped.

Oh, yes. Cupping her hand around his sac, she squeezed, contorting herself into a pretzel so she could drive him crazy and grind against her own arm at the same time, and generally be a filthy, dirty, sex-happy slut for him, and herself.

“Yes…” Zander breathed roughly, like he was fighting for control. Now that she had a hold of him, he couldn’t move very far, but he snapped his hips, rocking the head of his cock over some magical button deep inside her.
 

She bit her lip to keep from crying out as the swirling sensations came closer. Tighter. They wrapped right around her, so intense the edges of her vision started to dim.
 

“Come for me, babe. Come around my cock. Do it. Doit doit doit…Aaargh…” He lost control as she started spasming around him, and he fell over her, pushing her to the couch.

His mouth found her neck, then her ear, and he whispered things that made her blush as he held himself deep inside her.

She was going to have to get this couch steam cleaned, and until that could happen—at the earliest possible moment—she’d have to lock this room.

Totally, completely worth it.

But oh jeez, he was dirty.

And so was
she
, apparently.

She pushed her face into the couch cushion and grinned secretly to herself.

— —
 

Shit. Zander had just… no, he didn’t want to name what he’d just done to Faith. He’d practically reamed her in a back room of her house while her mother and son slept upstairs. And even worse, she’d gotten scared of the intimacy, and he’d ignored that because having her on all fours had made him so hard he couldn’t think straight.

He was an asshole.

He couldn’t risk going in search of a washcloth, so he pulled off his t-shirt.

“What are you doing?” Faith asked dozily, rolling onto her side as he tried to shift her legs.

“Cleaning you up.”

She laughed. “Can you grab the light? I’ve got baby wipes stashed in like every room of the house, but especially in here, because of paint and glitter glue.”

Nothing quite took the heat out of a post-coital moment like talk of glitter glue. He stood and found the lamp. Squinting against the sudden brightness, he kept his back to Faith for a moment, needing to compose himself. But before he could figure out what he was thinking, what he wanted to say, she sighed and stood up, following him across the small room. The crinkle of plastic accompanied her slide against his back, and she wrapped her arms around him, an open baby wipes container in her left hand.

“Here you go,” she whispered, pressing her lips against his spine.

“Do you—”

“I got one.”

He nodded.

“I’m glad you’re here tonight,” she said softly. “So, so glad. It’s kind of crazy, though, right?”

Did she mean falling in love after a week? It hardly felt like the most dangerous thing he’d done in his life. Driving around a poorly mapped mine field took that prize, and he’d fucking survived that. “I’ve done crazier things.”

“Come back to the couch.” Her arms slipped away, and he cursed himself for not holding on to her.

He tucked himself away and zipped up his jeans.

When he turned around, Faith had curled up on the couch. She was looking at him with a surprisingly open, happy look on her face.

Maybe he hadn’t gone too far.

“You okay?” she asked, holding out a hand. He took it and sat beside her, tugging her into his side. Her back fit right there, perfectly, like his chest had been carved just to hold her against him. Of course, he was supposed to be comforting her, not the other way round.

“Of course.” He buried his face in her hair, breathing her scent deep into his lungs before slowly exhaling. He wrapped his arm around her waist, like just holding her might ebb some of the tension away. It didn’t work. So he went for honest confession instead. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“What are you talking about?” She tried to turn, but he banded his arm tighter around her waist. Emotional dumps weren’t his strong suit. He didn’t need to get lost in her eyes at the same time.

“That was rough.”

“That was
hot
,” she said softly, and damn if that didn’t make his balls throb. It had been hot as hell—when he wasn’t thinking too much about it. “If or when you hurt me, I promise it’s not going to be because you held me down and made me come so hard I almost blacked out.”

“If or
when?
What does that mean?”

A long pause flooded between them, ratcheting up his pulse before she answered. He could feel her nibbling on her lower lip. “Well…you know…”

“I don’t. And since I’m heading back to work tomorrow, don’t you think we should clear this up now?”

“No?” She twisted again, and this time he let her because he wasn’t going to hold her against her will. She didn’t go far, though, just spun around and planted her hands gently on his chest, pushing him back against the arm of the couch. Then she wiggled into the space between his body and the back of the couch. Instantly, his panic eased.

She worked her fingers slowly down his chest in a lazy walking-man pattern. “Maybe let’s back up to talking about how hot it was. I might be out of practice, but I think when I turned around and said—”

“Minx,” he whispered, and she laughed.

“You don’t want me to say it again?”

“Didn’t we learn last night that I’m an insatiable ogre when it comes to you? Yes, I want you to say it again, and then I’ll flip you over and do it. Hard.” He tried like hell to ignore her shiver. He couldn’t.

“Then what’s the problem?”

“I wanted tonight to be—” Fuck, he was going to lose his bad-ass infantry soldier status if he admitted this. “Special.”

The giggle-snort in response was not reassuring.

“I can bench my body weight.”

“Wow,” she gasped, wiping at her eyes as laughter still wracked her body. “That’s a terrible attempt to change the subject.”

“I’m saying I’m strong.”

“And kind, and brave, and responsible. And…a giant girl when it comes to negotiating a friends-with-benefits thing.”

“That’s not what this is, and you know it.”
 

“Okay, that was the wrong phrase, but it’s not like this is…”

“What?” He sat up, pulling her with him. “This isn’t real? Because it’s pretty fucking real for me, Faith.”

Her mouth dropped open and she frowned at him. “You’re the one who called yourself my Mr. Right Now.”

“That was before. Hell, I want to bring you to my sister’s wedding. And you said yes. I want to introduce you as my girlfriend.”

Her eyes were big, wide, and suspiciously bright. “You said you’re not that kind of guy.”

“Maybe I didn’t know that I was.”

Her cheeks turned pink and she shook her head. “Don’t say that kind of thing. Not if you preface it with maybe. I can’t go there, you know? It’s too much, too soon.”

Shit, he did know that. He needed to shut himself up and the best way to do that was to pull her tight and kiss her senseless.

“Ignore the maybe,” he said, his voice strained as he pressed his forehead against hers once she was breathless and he’d laid the physical claim he couldn’t say out loud. Her lips were red and swollen, and he stroked his thumb across her mouth, around the bottom curve of her lower lip, then ghosted it over the cupid’s bow of her upper lip.

“I’m going to miss you so much.” Her voice cracked.
 

He wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight. “I’m coming back, Faith. No maybe about that.”

— THIRTEEN —

S
EPTEMBER brought the start of school, edits on Faith’s finished book, and daily video calls with Zander, usually after dinner in Tobermory, which was about the time he got home from work in Wainwright. Most days he was still in his camo fatigues, which Eric loved—and it didn’t take Faith long to figure out that’s why Zander didn’t change first before he Skyped them.

Right now, Eric was holding the iPad at the table, sitting with his back to Faith so she could see the screen over his shoulder as she tidied up the kitchen. She watched with amusement as her son tested his new best friend with spelling words.

“Brontosaurus.”

“B-R-O…”

She went to the front hall to get Eric’s backpack as Zander kept spelling. When she pulled out his lunch bag, it felt suspiciously heavy.
Damn it
. She should have checked right when they got home from school, but her mom had been raking leaves and they’d gotten distracted by jumping into the pile and taking some impromptu family pictures.

“Eric, honey, say goodbye to Zander,” she said when she returned to the kitchen.

He groaned, but when she wiggled her fingers, he handed over the iPad.

“Go find a book about dinosaurs for us to read together, please.” She waited until he was upstairs until she collapsed on the couch and gave Zander a sad face. “He didn’t eat his lunch again today.”

“Ahhh, shit. I’m sorry, babe. Did you talk to his teacher about that anxiety you were worried about?”

Yeah, and it had been a bust of a conversation. “She thinks he’s just too busy talking with his friends.”

“What does your gut tell you?”

“I don’t know. I’m worried I’m being paranoid.”

He gave her a gentle but firm look. “That’s not an answer to the question.”

“I think he’s struggling.”

“Then keep on it. Trust your gut.” The screen blurred as he moved through his small apartment, then he propped his phone against something in his bedroom and she watched as he first stripped off his uniform shirt, then the skin-tight, olive-green t-shirt underneath. He came closer to the screen—maybe his phone was on top of his dresser?—and then stepped back and pulled on a basic black t-shirt.

“Shame to cover that up,” she whispered, and he winked at her.

“Got a book, Mommy.”

She jumped up as Eric leapt onto the couch beside her, the iPad tumbling out of her hands. When she picked it up again, Zander was biting his knuckle to keep from laughing. She could feel her cheeks were on fire. She covered her face, then waved at the screen. “Okay, we’re going to go read that book.”

“I’m going to finish getting changed and hit the gym.”

It was the most mundane, ordinary conversation, but as they said their goodbyes, Faith felt refreshed.

Three weeks had gone by, and there was no sign of Zander losing interest. She’d been afraid that when he wasn’t near her, he would change his mind. Go back to being the guy who lived just for the present, and since his present reality was thousands of miles away…