Picture Perfect (13 page)

He pulled his mouth away from me, and I whimpered.

“This is very sexy, sweetheart, but are you sure this is okay? There aren’t any covers, and the light’s still on…”

“It’s more than okay. I know you want me no matter how I look.”

He kissed at my jaw, then pressed his lips to each of my cheeks, then each of my eyelids. Then his tongue licked into my mouth, slowly, languidly, running over every surface of my tongue and lips.

Jesus.

My hands slid over his back, and I dug my nails in as his hardness bobbed against the inside of my thigh. A burst of wanting warmth shot up between my legs. I had to have him. Now.

But then he rested his hands on my hips, pushing one and pulling the other, so that I turned around to face the water. In an instant, one of his arms wrapped around my stomach and the other reached for a mesh sponge and a bar of soap resting next to it.

“I’ve already washed …” My voice sounded weak.

“I know.” He sounded mischievous, and I liked it. “I just want to feel you up a little more.”

I giggled, and arched my back so that my stomach pressed out against his splayed fingers, long and strong like always. Something about seeing them covered in soap and smoothing over the soft roundness of my belly made them about ten times sexier, and suddenly I only wanted them to be doing one thing.

Just like he read my mind, Nate slid his hand down between my legs, and started flicking and circling every sensitive spot he’d discovered in the last couple of weeks.

A feeling like warm honey shot up all over my body, and my knees felt weak. But I couldn’t break his hold on me. Everything felt too good, including his other hand, which was now brushing the hair off my neck and kissing down my spine, then out toward my shoulder.

“I know last night was less than ideal, but my God, you were gorgeous on that dance floor. It was like a whole different, equally incredible you. Who was that Cat?” he asked, his tongue flicking against my collarbone.

He must have been talking about the pre “Busting-Jake-up” Cat.

I smiled, but I knew it wasn’t a good one. Not my usual genuine one, so I turned and kissed him, moaning as his thumb rubbed against my most sensitive spot, and sucking on his tongue.

He grunted and spun me around again, kissing me even harder and tangling his fingers through the wet blonde waves at the back of my head.

But then he pulled back, fluttering gentle kisses up along my cheekbones, then kissing the tip of my nose. The growing hardness between my legs told me he was dying for more, but the expression on his face and the gentleness in his voice told me something else. “Seriously, though. You looked so happy out there until…you didn’t anymore.” I realized I’d never seen his eyelashes wet before. Somehow, the way they were darkened by the water droplets made the sparkle in his eyes even more pronounced.

“I don’t know,” I said. “For a second I felt like my old self. But it was probably the alcohol.”

“What do you mean, your old self?” he asked, pressing a lingering kiss to my lips before looking into my eyes again.

“I don’t know. Confident. Happy in a crowd.”

“Why only for a minute?”

“Because, I’m not the same person I used to be. And as soon as the alcohol wore off a little bit, I was back to the me I am now. The only one you’ve ever known, I guess.” I shrugged like it didn’t matter. But I knew he could tell it did.

He caught my chin with two fingers, and held my gaze to his. “Well, I love the you I know now.”

My heart beat wildly in my chest. Had he just told me he loved me? I didn’t want to ask, and couldn’t even if I did, because his mouth was back on mine, sweet and exploring and wanting. Patient and desperate all at once. One of his hands cradled my jaw and the other played at the nape of my neck, and for just that moment, with the pattering of water against the walls and the steam hiding everything but the curves of our bodies, I could imagine the world belonged entirely to us.

And then I knew, with all of me, that he did love me, and that I loved him too, and suddenly hearing it wasn’t so important anymore. But having him even closer was.

From behind, his length slid against me, and even though everything was hot and wet, the heat of the two of us together was so sweet, and so incredible, that I wriggled against him even closer, dying to have him inside. He kissed and licked down my neck, sucking and biting as he went, while my hand circled him down below. Then, with a groan, his hands were on my breasts, his thumbs flicking at the now-hard beads at the front. Dipping his head, he sucked one deep into his mouth, drawing back after a few seconds and circling my nipple with his tongue, then tugging it between his teeth ever so gently before moving to the other side and giving it similar treatment.

Pleasure shot through me, and there was nothing but the steam and the water and stars swimming around my head at how absolutely incredible and treasured I felt in that moment.

But after another few seconds, it still wasn’t enough. I didn’t think it would ever be enough.

“I want you,” I managed, my voice hushed and ragged.

Another low rumble from his chest, and he had me turned around again, and nudged me toward the back wall of the shower. One of my hands gripped the towel bar, and the other splayed out on the wall beside it. His hand covered mine, our fingers interlacing, while his breath breathed hot against my ear, driving me wild.

“Let me just grab a condom,” he said. I swore if he left me, I would collapse in a quivering heap right there on the floor, so I turned and kissed him, biting his lower lip when I pulled back.

“Don’t,” I pleaded. “It’s fine. I’m on the pill, and I trust you.” I reached back and let my hand slip around him again. He groaned.

“Please,” I said.

His forehead fell against my shoulder, and then, with one firm thrust, he was inside. Dear Lord, I had never felt anything so incredible in my life. There was something raw, something primal, something utterly trusting, about the white-hot skin-on-skin sensation of just him inside of me with nothing between us.

Not to mention that from this angle he was deeper than he’d ever been.

While one of his hands held mine against the wall, steadying me, the other caressed my most sensitive spot, driving me absolutely wild. His hot length plunged in again and again, urgent yet controlled, like he was thirsty and wanted to take long, slow, deep drinks of me for as long as he could stand it.

His fingers never left my clit, flicking and teasing at first, and then, as his rhythm inside became even stronger, deeper, more intense, rubbing in hard, steady circles.

I arched my back to let him even deeper inside, and his balls slapped against my ass, punctuating the urgency with which he drove into me. He sucked at the space just below my ear, and between that and the all-encompassing pleasure of his hand in front of me, I had no choice the mounting orgasm burst all the way through me, starting at my core and rippling through all my limbs.

My body clenched around him again and again as a long, low moan trembled out of my throat. A second later, his hand moved from between my legs to wrap all the way around my stomach and hold onto me as if for dear life. I hadn’t thought he could get any harder, but as my body spasmed over his, he was like steel inside me, driving faster and faster in short, deep thrusts, until finally, his moans joined mine, echoing off the tiled shower walls.

We stood there, still joined together, for just a second until he pulled out. He turned me around again and devoured me with long, satisfied kisses balanced with knowing grins and panting from both of us.

“I think you need to hold me up,” I said. “I’m all shaky.”

“You and me both, sweetheart.”

He reached for the mesh sponge again and ran his hand gently between my legs. “Let’s get cleaned up a little bit, and then I want to feel every inch of you with my fingers. And my tongue.”

“And maybe your teeth a little?” I whispered, craning my neck up just enough to capture one of his earlobes between mine.

He chuckled softly, and I felt him twitch against my thigh again.

“My, my. I’d say that’s a yes.”

I disentangled from him and stepped out of the shower, grabbing one of the guy-smelling towels hanging on the back of the door and pulling it tight around my chest.

“No. That’s a hell yes.” He reached under the towel and pinched my ass, and I squealed and ran out of the bathroom, tumbling into the bed. For once, I didn’t care if the lights were on or my hair was wet or my makeup had gone. And when he jumped in after me, and kept his promise to explore every inch of me for the rest of the morning, I was pretty sure he didn’t, either.

We
were three weeks from Thanksgiving break, and none of my e-mails had delivered a good deal on the flight I needed to get back home to California. By this time last year, my account had had a few extra thousand dollars in it from modeling gigs, and I’d barely blinked before dropping eight hundred of it on a ticket home to see my dad. Bouncing from house to house always sucked anyway, but there was something about those stolen moments lounging on the couch with my brother in our PJs that made it all worth it. I would have gone back to Ohio, but my mom was using the holiday as an excuse to party in Vegas with her best friends. Everything was cheaper over Thanksgiving, she’d said.

Finally, I found a flight that would get me home in time for Thanksgiving in the six-hundred-dollar range. I had barely more than that in my bank account.

I booked the flight, entered my debit card information, and was just daydreaming about the shopping trip I’d hopefully be able to get my stepmother to take me on and the new riding boots I’d been coveting, since my old ones had been beat up by the Philly streets, when the site refreshed with an angry red bar up top.
Something has gone wrong with your payment information. Please try a different card, or enter the information again
.

My heart stopped. “What the hell?” I muttered as I navigated to my bank’s website and hastily signed in. When the account page loaded, I felt sick to my stomach. My hand flew to my mouth and I shook my head. “Dammit,” I said. “Dammit.” The screen read, plain as day,
Account balance: $232.18
.

“What the hell?” I repeated as tears welled in my eyes. I couldn’t ask my parents for more money—Mom didn’t have any, and Dad had already cautioned against asking. I had to stay in a budget, he said. My brother was broke.

I didn’t have a credit card. Dad had always taught us that we shouldn’t have one, especially if we didn’t have a guaranteed steady income, and I’d always had plenty of cash last year. I wasn’t going to get one just to go home for Thanksgiving. It wasn’t that big of a deal.

Except, when I thought about staying in that big house all by myself eating a sad frozen meal—and probably, let’s face it, some raw cookie dough—a lump rose in my throat. That’s when there was a soft knock at the door, and Nate’s head popped in.

“Hey, sweetheart, Joey let me up. I brought you some coffee since we’re staying up late studying, and—oh, shit. What’s up?” He dropped his bag right inside my door and strode over to me in a few steps, setting the coffee down on my desk before kneeling down and looking me in the eye.

Now the tears were rolling, prompted by his concern.

“Nothing,” I said. “It’s nothing. I just…California flights are expensive, and I guess I spent more than I thought this semester already. That’s it,” I muttered, shuffling papers around on my desk.

“So just put it on a credit card. You’ll figure it out later.”

“I don’t have one.” I told him the whole story, and he nodded, watching me.

“Let me buy it, then. Thanksgiving present from me to you.”

“There’s no such thing as Thanksgiving presents,” I laughed. I swiped the tears from under my eyes, checking quickly to make sure none of the waterproof mascara had flaked off.

He leaned in and kissed the corner of my mouth, whispering against my lips, “I know. But I just hate seeing you cry.”

I laughed. “I’m okay. Really.”

“You want to get back to Cali that much, huh?”

“Oh, it’s not that, it just that …I don’t know. All my roommates are going, and…oh, shit.” I’d been so self-centered I was realizing it too late. He thought I was inviting myself home with him. That half-happy, half-mischievous look in his eye confirmed it. “No, no,” I stammered. “You don’t have to…”

“No, but you do. Have to come home with me for Thanksgiving. It’s only two and a half hours north. We can come back that night,” he said with a wink, and I laughed again.

“I really didn’t mean to invite myself.”

“My mom would kill me if she found out not only about the existence of you, but the fact that you were all alone back on campus on Thanksgiving, without me bringing you home with me.”

He was already down on his knees so he could hug me as I sat in my desk chair, but now he took both my hands in one of his. And when he said my name, I swooned and wanted to jump him all at once. “Cat, formerly known as Hot Katie, will you please come home with me for Thanksgiving?”

I couldn’t bring myself to say “yes.” It was way too cheesy for this guy and this moment, and so I just leaned down, snaking my hands under his arms and pressing my lips to his, then whimpering as his tongue slid against my bottom lip. A few minutes later, we pulled apart, and he stood up, holding his hand down to me. I took it and stood next to him, leaning in for one more quick kiss. “Oh, she’s gonna love you.”

The few weeks between then and Thanksgiving passed in a blur. I worked my ass off for my portfolio, and managed to come up with a few decent designs. They weren’t perfect, and I didn’t have all eight designs I needed for the competition, but I reasoned that I’d tackle it after Thanksgiving. I’d always worked better under pressure, anyway, and maybe panic would be a good substitute for inspiration.

I never tried to go back out to the bar again. Even though the shower marginally fixed my mood, it had been so awful the night of, and I was working so much and studying the rest of the time that I couldn’t bring myself to go out again. On top of that, Nate gave me not only a drawer at his house, but an entire dresser. A few weeks later, most of the clothes I owned that actually fit me lived there, and I was bringing groceries back to his place so he could cook me dinner while I sketched designs for new clothes.

More and more often, I knew my designs would look way better on a plus-sized girl.

I had to admit, a not-so-small part of me was pretty damn excited about going home with Nate. Every time I was with him, I felt like we connected on a new level. And even though the L-word hadn’t been repeated since that one time in the shower, the way he listened to me talk, the way he took care of me, and the way he gave me such careful attention under the covers told me he loved me. I loved him too, without a doubt in my mind.

Doctor Albright’s voice still popped into my head from time to time, but I reasoned that it had only been a couple of weeks since I’d seen her, and I’d taken care of step one. Or, at least, the step one I’d translated her “pose nude” assignment into—Get Naked In Front of a Guy.

I’d done that. Hell, I’d let him fuck me from behind in the shower. That had to count for triple points.

I sighed as I stuffed things into my backpack at Nate’s house, just so I could take them home to stuff in my suitcase. I hadn’t wanted to drag my empty suitcase to his house to fill it. I shoved panties and pajama pants into my backpack, and a stray sweatshirt of his I hoped he wouldn’t notice was missing.

“Hey, thief.” His warm voice rolled over my shoulder as his arms went around my waist. Over the last few weeks, I’d started to barely even notice when he touched a part of my body I was very sensitive about—it just didn’t even matter. There came a time in every relationship when, if someone had kissed and licked and sucked every part of you enough times, you became pretty damn sure they liked your body. Even if you didn’t.

Being there with Nate was amazing, to say the least.

“Keep stuffing that bag,” he murmured into my ear. “We need to be on the road in an hour.”

“Yeah? Really?” I had thought we had more time.

“Yeah.” He stood up and running a hand through his hair. “Change of plans. Mom has a new boy toy she wants me to meet, and it was either dinner the night before Thanksgiving or Thanksgiving itself. And I swear, these guys are getting more and more ridiculous.”

“So Thanksgiving dinner would be….”

“A bad idea. I think. I don’t know. I don’t have any sibs to make the buffer zone. And California is too far away to impulsively flee.”

“It’s too bad, you know,” I said. “It might be kind of fun to go back to camp. Where we first met.”

“Oh, my God. Why would you ever want to go back there?”

“I don’t know. Nostalgia?”

“You might have had a great summer there, but all I remember outside of that one sweet kiss was being the fat kid everyone tortured.” He shuddered. “No.”

“Oh.” I’d never thought of it that way before. The fact that the memory of camp hurt him hurt me, too. I nodded. “Okay, pick me up in a couple hours?” I asked, shouldering my backpack and heading for the door.

Nate caught my belt loop and pulled me back toward him, crushing his mouth to mine. “Sweetheart, please,” he said, his voice husky. “Let me drive you back. I’m really not interested in letting you out of my sight for the next three days.”

I giggled, pressing in again and letting my tongue sweep into his mouth. “That’s just fine with me.”

The drive up to Wilkes-Barre would have been boring, with its straight-as-an arrow turnpike road framed by endless flat farmland and gray sky, but, I realized as the car barreled north, we’d spent a lot of time together over the past six weeks. Even though the sex was great, and there was a lot of it, most of our time was spent just being together. Cooking, talking, laughing. We had so much in common, between our divorced parents and summers in California and the similar majors, that talking to him was easy. Like an extension of myself, or the new self I’d been since the accident.

“How’s your leg feeling these days? Think you’d be up for a hike?” He stroked his thumb against the back of my hand. I hadn’t even realized my other hand was gripping my shin, folded beneath me on the heated seat of the SUV he’d rented.

“It’s been bugging me a little, but that’s because I haven’t been working out enough.”

“Too much studio time?”

“Kind of.” I had been pushing to get my portfolio built up, but that was all he knew. I hadn’t told him about the contest, or about how his architecture-inspired insights had been so influential on my work. Mostly because I wanted it to be a surprise, and a little bit for some other reason I hadn’t quite figured out yet. “So yes. I’d love for you to show me around. Show me everything else, too.”

“Okay. I’m warning you right now. It’s a hick town—like, a strip mall and a motel and a couple restaurants. Oh, and a casino.”

“A casino? Fancy.”

He threw his head back and laughed. “Hardly. Just a bunch of slot machines and a restaurant that serves mushy pasta and oily mozzarella sticks. And a Holiday Inn attached to it attempting to be fancy. Which, actually…” He dropped my hand to pick up his phone and scroll through the messages, read one, and groaned. “Yep. Mom says that’s where we’re having dinner tonight.”

Something about his half-misery about his small hometown made me laugh. Mostly because it made me think about Dayton, Ohio, where I was from. It was a whole city trying to be upper-class and not quite making it there. Not even really getting close. His mock disdain for it was just one more thing we had in common, just one more thing that made me love him.

And there it was again, that word creeping into my thoughts, even though I’d tried to focus on things that would chase it away—the fact that we were in college, for one, and that I’d only known him for six weeks. The fact that when we were together we mostly ate and watched TV and had sex. We didn’t have a history besides him being the fat kid at camp and me giving him a pity kiss, even though that was an eternity ago.

We pulled off the freeway about half an hour later, and the SUV handled the curving hill downward so beautifully that I could completely concentrate on watching the little town unfold before my eyes—a little network of white houses and golden-tipped churches huddled between the mountains and blanketed in mist.

“Oh, it’s pretty!” I said, smiling and gripping his hand.

“You think so?” he asked, a bemused smile on his face.

“Yeah, I do. It’s sweet. Kind of like a storybook. Why all the churches?”

“Super ethnic town. Lots of Polish and Italian Catholics. They love their churches more than their own houses.”

My heart panged at that. “Everything in Ohio is flat, and kind of new. Not quite so many roots. More spread out. This is like a fairy tale.”

“You really like it, huh?”

“I love it, actually,” I said, looking up and meeting his eyes. His softened, and then he swallowed and cleared his throat.

“Good. Because no matter how different my mom is and how much I’ve grown up, this will always be home.” He laughed a short laugh, and I squeezed his hand. “My house is…modest. You’ll see. It’s not that awesome, and I don’t know what room Mom will have you in, and—”

I leaned in to kiss the underside of his jaw, which I knew drove him wild. “Will you be there?” I murmured.

A rough chuckle rolled up from his throat. “Of course, sweetheart. Anywhere you’ll be.”

“Then it’s perfect.”

We wound down through the streets of the small town, whose streets were crammed with tiny white houses, Masoniclodges, a few mom and pop diners, an elementary school and a high school, and churches. Churches everywhere. We pulled into the parking lot of the casino, which actually looked like a huge hotel, were it not for the signs telling us it was a casino. We walked inside, and the whole thing was filled with office-quality carpet and slot machines as far as the eye could see—none of the showgirls or flashing lights or lavish card dealer tables like you saw in the movies about Vegas. The lights weren’t even dimmed. It was just a huge room filled with small-town people with nothing better to do. I couldn’t help but smile. There was something really sweet about the whole thing.

A girl in a white shirt, tuxedo vest, and black bow tie carrying a tray with a half-empty drink walked up to us and asked, “Can I help you two?”

Nate’s eyes darted around the room, suddenly wary. I squeezed his hand and smiled at the waitress. “Yes, thanks. We’re looking for the restaurant?”

“Right this way,” she said, sauntering off to the left. We crossed out of the huge room with the tacky patterned carpet and into a restaurant that looked like half the Italian chain restaurants I’d seen: side wall painted like a faux ancient brick you might see in Italy, if you squinted hard enough, bottles of cheap wine lining the walls, and Sinatra crooning over the speakers. I didn’t know what about it made me grin, but it did.