Rock N Soul (44 page)

“Yeah,” I said, letting my nerves settle back down a bit when he didn’t vanish, “let’s go.”

We said last good-byes and called a cab, then I picked up my backpack and guitar case yet again and headed for the road. Chris put his arm around me while we waited for the taxi to show up.

“So what’s next?” I said.

He shrugged helplessly. “Fuck if I know. I’m not an expert on ghosts.”

“You’re still here,” I pointed out. “Not that I’m complaining. But it’s a little surprising after all the time I’ve spent imagining you just vanishing as soon as you finished talking to her.”

“Well, you asked me to stay,” he said. “And didn’t you say that one of Chad’s ghosts stuck around for a while?”

“That’s what he said. Maybe we get more time, then.” I viciously tamped down on the hope I was feeling. After all, just because he hadn’t disappeared instantly after saying good-bye to Allison didn’t mean that he was here to stay.

“Let’s not waste it, then,” he said. “Let’s go home.”

We had the taxi drop us off at a rental car station, then rented a car with some of the money Eric had forced on me and drove back to Boston. I held Chris’s hand tightly the entire drive. We talked again, like we had on the plane, but this time it was a little more lighthearted, a little more hopeful. There was still a desperate edge to it, but the knots in my stomach were looser. I could smell him, feel his heat radiating from the seat beside me, and it felt . . . real.

“Why do you breathe?” I asked him at one point.

“I don’t think I need to. But it makes me feel normal.” He sucked in a bunch of air and let his cheeks puff out like a chipmunk, and I laughed and squeezed his hand.

As we crossed the state line into Massachusetts, I said, “I think I’m going to find a two-bedroom apartment and ask Chad to move in.”

“Can you afford that?” he asked, and he sounded genuinely concerned instead of bitchy for once.

“Eric gave me a
lot
of money,” I told him, then corrected myself. “Well, not a
lot
. But enough to make up the difference for a while. And Chad needs out of his mom’s house, and I’m sure that eventually he’d find a job and could pitch in.”

“Well, he’ll have to deal with occasional screaming from our room.” Chris waggled his eyebrows at me.

The use of “our” gave me a warm glowing feeling in my torso region, but the Pinky Vow time was over and I was honor-bound to give him shit again. “Only in frustration because you’re a douche,” I said, then shot him a sideways grin.

The road stretched on in front of us, and I let myself imagine that this was going to last forever.

We got back to Boston and dropped off the rental car, then caught the subway to my apartment. I lugged the guitar case and my backpack up the stairs and put them in the corner, then turned to Chris. We hadn’t spoken much since dropping off the car, but he’d stayed close by me, touching me on the arm and the back and the shoulder as much as possible.

“Do you think it’s over?” Chris asked. His voice was quiet, unsteady.

I reached deep down into my mind and my gut, trying to decide whether the Powers That Be were okay with this. I didn’t feel like I had when we were thinking of skipping out on talking to Allison, but things didn’t feel . . . resolved either. Adrenaline still thrummed under my skin, like there was still something left to do. And I had a pretty good idea of what that was.

“We’re assuming for now that you’re staying. But just in case we’re wrong . . .” I reached into my nightstand and produced a bottle of lube, then tossed it onto the bed and stepped up next to him with what I hoped was a sexy smile. “Fuck me.”

“Hell yes,” he said and pulled me toward the bed.

He lay down and yanked me on top of him. He still couldn’t get a grip on my clothes, but I could take his off, and when we were naked and I put my hands on his chest it felt deliciously real—no invisible gloves this time, just heat and sweat and skin. I moaned and kissed him deeply, tasting his mouth and drinking in his heat and the scent of his cologne.

He pulled away and looked at me strangely. “Your mouth is minty.”

“Yeah, I popped a mint in the car,” I answered, not paying too much attention to the statement since I was preoccupied with making out with my rock star boyfriend. I kissed him again, straddling him and rubbing against him as seductively as I could given that I was still a rookie at seducing a man.

“No, you don’t understand,” he said, pushing me back to lock eyes with me. “I can
taste
your
mouth
.”

I blinked to clear the lust haze from my eyes, then groaned as I figured out what he meant. “Shit, that means you’re going to make me eat scones and then you’re going to kiss me to taste them, aren’t you?”

“Fuck yes. But first . . .” He touched my jawline with just the tips of his fingers. “Are you sure? That you want to do this?”

“Of course I’m sure, you idiot,” I said. “Can’t you tell?” I ground down against him so he could
feel
how sure I was.

“I can tell.” His hand fell away from my face, and his fingers trailed over my chest and stomach as he brought it down. “I just mean . . . if I’m not going to be here anymore. If you’re going to go out and find someone else—”

I tapped his cheek lightly. “Stop that. Number one, if you leave, I don’t think I’ll ever want to find anyone else. And number two, even if I did . . .” I kissed him. “I still want you to be the one, okay? If you’re going to go, that’s even more reason for me to want it to be you.”

He considered that for a moment, then flipped us over so that my back was against the bed and he was on top of me. “You’ll have to get yourself ready since I can’t touch the bottle.” I must have looked nervous, because he shot a skin-searing grin at me and nibbled at my earlobe. “Don’t worry, I’ll be distracting you,” he rasped into my ear.

I groaned and pushed him off of me so that I could roll onto my side, then grabbed the lube from where I’d tossed it earlier and worked on opening myself for him. Chris pressed himself against me and licked at my neck while his hands roamed over the rest of me, pausing whenever he touched a place that made me gasp, as if he was making a mental map of my hot spots.

Not that finding my hot spots was hard—it seemed like anywhere his fingers brushed made my skin catch fire. I’d always enjoyed sex, but this was different. Nobody else had ever cared about making me squirm, about watching the looks on my face as they touched me. Everyone had always treated my pleasure like a price of admission—something to give me so that I would give it to them too—but Chris seemed to get off on making
me
get off, which was hot as hell.

By the time I was ready for him, my fingers were shaking and my breath had started coming out in gasps, and he hadn’t even gotten to my dick yet. I rocked my hips so that my cock slid against his warm abs and hissed in pleasure.

Chris grabbed my chin. “Focus. Come back down.”

“
Fuck
,” I gasped, giving him the most pleading eyes I could muster. “I’m too close.” My hips moved again without my permission and it was almost over right then, but Chris dug his fingernails into my side, just hard enough to hurt a little and to bring me back down.

“Not yet,” he said, his already-dark eyes dilated to the point that they were nearly black. “I want to be in you when you let go.”

I gritted my teeth and tried to remember Grandma’s raspberry muffin recipe. “Then for fuck’s sake, do it
now
.”

Chris rolled me over onto my back again, and I opened my legs to let him settle between them. He lifted my hips up and positioned himself, and I felt the head of his cock pressing against me. “Are you ready?” he asked.

“Yes,” I gasped. “Yes yes yes yes.” I put my hands on his sides and tried to pull him forward into me. “Do it now, before I fucking
die
.”

I couldn’t remember if you were supposed to preheat the oven to 350° or 400° and I tried to picture the recipe card in my head, and then he was pushing in and the sensation was strange enough to distract me from the orgasm I’d been barely holding off. I looked up into Chris’s eyes and our gazes locked, and I wouldn’t have been able to look away if there’d been a gun to my head.

He smiled and stopped moving with just the head inside me. “You okay?” he asked, his voice rough but carefully controlled.

He was a decent-sized guy and I’d never had anything inside me except my own fingers, and even
that
had been a long time ago. There was no way in hell this was going to work. It stung a little, and I was having trouble relaxing to allow him in, and the fear that Chris was going to be disappointed rushed over me and trailed icicles down my skin.

But then he kissed me gently, using his tongue to tease my lips open and moving inside my mouth slowly and with a lot of emotion. The fear melted as my skin heated up again. This was
Chris
, and he loved me, and I wanted this, so I put my arms around his neck and kissed back and moaned softly into his mouth as he slid farther inside me.

And then he was all the way in, and I wondered if my eyes were as huge as his and if my skin was flushed like his. Probably so. The discomfort was fading as I adjusted around him, and soon it was minor enough to be easily overtaken by the rising tide of delirious
want
that seeing him above me and feeling him inside me was triggering again.

I gave Chris a nervous smile and wiggled my hips, and his eyes crossed slightly and lost focus on the world. I decided to make it my personal mission to cause him to make that face as often as possible for however long he stayed around.

So I did it again. He groaned. “You need time,” he said through his clenched jaw.

“Fuck that,” I said, experimentally squeezing around him, which tore a guttural whimper out of his throat. “I’m fine. Go.”

He started moving then, slowly at first. The last of the stinging and discomfort faded as I got used to having him in me, and my cock didn’t waste any time getting rock-hard again when Chris’s stomach rubbed against it with each thrust. I tilted my hips to give myself a better chance of hitting his abs, and the new angle had the added bonus of making his dick press into just the right spot inside me, and I thought for a second that I was going to pass out.

“Oh,” he breathed, grinning down at me. “You like that, don’t you?” He sped up a little, moving faster and harder. After a few thrusts, he hit that spot again, and I arched up off the bed and clutched at his biceps to steady myself.

He took my cock in his hand. I was so incredibly hard that it almost hurt to be touched, and I hissed and writhed underneath him, which just made him hit my prostate again. He moaned loudly and let go of my cock to grab my hips.

“Sorry,” I gasped out, barely keeping myself together again.

“Don’t apologize,” he breathed, and then started really going for it, slamming into me like he couldn’t hold back anymore. “Fuck, you feel good.”

Every thrust seemed to hit the fuck-yes button inside me, which made sparkles appear at the edge of my vision. I tried to reach between us and give myself the last couple of rubs I needed, but he shifted his weight and knocked my hand away before I got hold of myself. “No,” he gasped. “
I’m
going to make you come. Me.”

Do it, then
, I thought, but I couldn’t force the words past my lips, so I just locked eyes with him and tried to communicate through moans instead.

He seemed to get the drift, though, because he wrapped his hand around me and started pumping his fist in time with his thrusts. The blood behind my ears roared, and I grabbed the bedsheets, twisting my fingers into them and holding off for as long as I could until he hit my prostate one more time and holy shit, I hadn’t known it was
possible
to come that hard without literally flying apart. My body left the bed and every muscle in it clenched impossibly tight before exploding into boneless relaxation, and I barely had time to refocus before Chris was coming too, yelling my name and pulsing inside me with a glazed look in his eyes.

I attempted to say something coherent like “Why yes, good sir, that was an excellent orgasm you provided me with” but instead I just started babbling about love and want and need and saying Chris’s name far too many times while he collapsed on top of me, breathing hard and burying his lips into the spot where my neck met my shoulder. I put my hands in his hair, stroking it and murmuring nonsense until our hearts began to slow down and our breathing returned to normal.

After what seemed like a long time, Chris slowly pulled the rest of the way out. He lay down beside me, and I rolled over to face him.

He smiled and kissed my forehead, then gave me a wicked grin. “I told you that you’d love being a bottom.”

I smacked him, but I was too exhausted to make it a very painful smack, and my hands were shaking just a bit so that made it less convincing too. “Shut up. You’ll get it hard when it’s your turn.”

“Oh, baby, I’m looking forward to it,” he breathed. He brushed my hair away from my face. “You’re fucking gorgeous, did you know that?”