The Fight for Us (22 page)

He was hard and rigid against her as he lifted the back of her camisole and let his cock rest against her skin. “Stroke me.”

The second her fingers wrapped around his breadth, he released a hiss of air against her ear, and then his arm reached around her, bracing himself with his palm against the glass in front of her for a moment. But that wasn’t his final destination. After he’d groaned against her neck as he relaxed into the pressure of her grip on him, his palm left the glass, reaching for the waist of her slacks. He undid the clasp and lowered the zipper, and when he finally pushed his hand past the waistband of her underwear, she felt the coolness left over from the windowpane on his fingers.

He groaned again as his fingers slipped between her lips. He’d barely touched her here at all the night they’d been in the boardroom, but now, he moved slowly, stroking over her clit as she nearly doubled over in desperate need. The sensation caused her fingers to tighten around him, and he cursed as he felt her grip clamp down.

“I was far too desperate to take my time with your pussy the night we made love. That was wrong of me, and I intend to make up for ignoring this part of you.” He tickled gently over her hardened swollen nub of nerves, and her legs started shaking.

She leaned forward, letting her forehead rest against the glass and hoping the cool, hard surface would be enough to keep her conscious and on her feet. His body followed her angle, and he rested his forearm on the glass above her head as his other occupied hand continued to torment.

He slipped easily through her aroused, wet lips, and he moaned and hummed as his fingers moved. “Hold your hand still.” He whispered, and as she stilled her hand with the back of it against the small of her back, he bit her neck. She closed her eyes as his fingers trailed lower between her lips, and when they brushed past her entry, she cried out. At the same moment that he forced two large fingers past her lips and into her body, he rolled his hips, pushing through her grip that was wrapped tightly around him.

He started thrusting then—both his fingers within her and his dick through her grasp. He was using her hand to fuck himself, and the lurching throaty grunts he made against her skin were causing her own arousal to intensify as he pushed deep into her with his fingers.

“Tighter.” He could barely get the word out as he humped and thrust against her, and when he pushed his thumb up against her clit, pressing hard against the overly-sensitized nerves, her hand constricted him even more harshly. “Oh, fuck,” he gasped out. He trailed his thumb over her clit, swirling around it as his fingers plunged and penetrated. Her knees started trembling very visibly, and her whimpers sounded nearly like she was going to start crying at any moment.

When he forcefully inserted a third finger in with the first two, she shrieked and squeezed hard on him—both where his fingers were buried in her body and around his rigid erection in the palm of her hand. And then she was coming, clawing at the window with her free hand as her brain subconsciously attempted to find anything at all she could grab onto to keep her on her feet as her legs shook. He thrust his cock one last time before she felt him spasming within her palm and emptying himself on her back. He panted, and she could feel his chest rising and falling quickly against her back. She gasped for breath as her legs threatened to give out on her.

She was trembling from head to foot, and he started to chuckle against her neck even as he still fought to catch his own breath. His head collapsed to her shoulder, and he slowly pulled his fingers from her clenching and trembling sheath. He ran his hand gently over the skin of her vagina, soothing the sensitive folds, and before she knew it and before she was ready, he was zipping her slacks and re-clasping them.

“You can let go now,” he said.

She hadn’t even realized she was clutching his still-hard arousal, and as she released him, his breath caught in his throat. He dropped her shirt back into place, sealing his wetness against her skin, and she hissed at the awkward feel of it as he zipped his pants. By the time she turned around, he looked mildly flushed, completely replete, but otherwise normal.

“Well, that’s an interesting sensation.” She commented, but even though it was her comment to say, her cheeks instantly warmed.

“No one but us will have any idea just what a mess I’ve made of you, so don’t even think of cleaning up.” He grabbed her jacket from the doorknob, helping her into it.

“You realize I still haven’t seen your love sword, right?”

He laughed loudly at that bit of complete ridiculous honesty. “I am very aware of that, yes. Of course, I haven’t seen your lady garden either. I’m enjoying this. And I’m a very patient man.”

“How lovely for me,” she muttered as she walked out of the room. Actually, it was quite lovely. She wasn’t sure she’d ever had such an intense orgasm.

She’d officially checked her stress at the bedroom door, and however jokingly she was handling their post finger fondling session, it didn’t escape her attention just how relieved and thankful she was to have put her worries away. She’d have to deal with the fact that she didn’t have a place to live for much longer and that she might need to figure out how to pay for a good family lawyer, but at the moment, she was too busy thinking about love swords and lady gardens to let it consume her.

He managed to get out the door in time to get to the bank for the closing, but only after he’d lifted her to the kitchen counter, wrapped his arms around her, and rested his head on her shoulder with his mouth to her neck for a good fifteen minutes. She’d snuggled into the warmth of his body and shut her eyes as he enclosed her in his arms. Furniture would certainly make the whole post-coital bliss more comfortable, but the house was just an empty shell of what it would become later that day.

He grumbled and groaned when he stood up straight. “You want to tell me yet what you were so upset about earlier this morning?” He studied her closely. He was the human lie detector after all.

“Nothing. Just an early morning run-in with Todd and Randall at the same time. That can sour anyone’s day.”

“Ah. And how are the asswipes?”

“Oh, they’re great. Randall signed a new client, so he has nothing to complain about. And Todd is moving to Bristol to torment me, so he’s in rare form too.” She was misleading him by telling him the truth—an odd concept for sure.

He watched her for another moment. She could nearly see the gears turning in his mind as he gauged her every word and every reaction. When he finally gave up searching her brain for deception, he leaned to her mouth and kissed her, but he didn’t pull away when he was done. Instead, his lips trailed back to her ear. “Maybe later you’ll tell me what’s really going on.”

She was gnawing on the inside of her lip by the time he stepped back from her. “You’re going to be late.”

Chapter Eighteen

Isaiah hadn’t intended to drive by Joss’s home that afternoon. It hadn’t been the plan. She was going to pick up the girls from practice and meet him at The Landing for dinner. But he knew she intended to run home from the office before going to pick up the girls, so when the movers finally left at four that afternoon, and he was left in box city again without a clue where to start, he’d thrown in the towel for a while and gone shopping.

Bristol was touristy, but not this time of year—not when the water would freeze up any week, making travel between Bristol and the mainland just that much more cumbersome. But it was only days before Christmas, and the small boutique shops on Bristol Main were overflowing with what he was lacking—anything holiday spirity whatsoever. The tree he bought was fairly tall but slim and simplistic. There was nothing live about it, but he liked that it was in a box, and he didn’t have to traipse out somewhere and hack it down. The ornaments literally came in the same box and left nothing to chance.

So, when he drove by on his way home from the store, he was really just hoping he’d get lucky. He wanted to put up the tree before they picked the girls up and had dinner, and he wanted to do that with Joss. Her car was there, and when he pulled in, he parked beside it. It wasn’t until he was walking toward her door, that he caught sight of the blue and white For Sale sign. He’d seen plenty of them around town, most recently just that morning when Joss had uprooted one from his new front lawn. But this one didn’t have her name and contact information on it.

Fucking Randall.

He was almost angry at her for not telling him exactly what was behind her run-in with the asswipe duo until she pulled the door open. Her eyes glanced beyond him to the sign that was just a huge fucking stab to her dignity he was guessing, and when she looked back up at him, she took a deep breath that hitched in her throat.

“Early morning run-in with Todd and Randall, huh?” He watched her. There was no irritation to his voice; he’d tempered that before he’d even opened his mouth.

She nodded as she blew out a frustrated breath.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

She smiled, but it was a sad smile, and she shook her head as tears appeared on her lower lids. When she shrugged she was really just saying she didn’t have an answer to that one—at least not one she was willing to talk about. Given the tightness in her neck, it wasn’t willingness at all. She was two seconds from breaking down, and she was fighting it. He had a daughter. He knew how this worked. He also knew if he touched her in any way at this moment, it would be all over for her. She’d melt, and he’d spend the next half hour picking up the pieces.

But the odd thing was it was exactly what he wanted her to do. The Christmas tree could wait. She needed to fall apart, and he needed to be the one that picked her up. He didn’t give a fuck if it sounded cliché or pathetic. She was his to care for, and he understood the importance of that, perhaps a lesson he’d finally learned after losing more than he thought he could endure losing and then watching his daughter nearly slip away too in her own grief. This might not be life or death, but this was Joss’s world that was crumbling around her, and she didn’t have a clue how to fix it. For a man who’d made the mistake of telling her he didn’t want to fight for her, it was all he wanted to do at the moment.

He stepped in, pushing the door shut with his foot as he scooped her up in his arms. And that’s all it took. Her breathing hitched, and yet, she fought back the sobs. She groaned this agonizing pained sound that made his insides hurt for her. He shushed her as he carried her to the living room, and when he sat down on the couch with her on his lap, he wrapped his arms around her and held on tight.

She was still wearing her suit, and it was a strange dichotomy to her state. She’d looked beautiful that morning—professional, perfectly tailored, and now her clothes were the same, and yet, she seemed so young and fragile. She wasn’t the woman who’d verbally torn into him the first time they’d met. She was a mess—a perfect, beautiful mess that had been fighting for too long and for too hard to make it alone.

“I feel so stupid.” Her lips brushed against his neck, and her voice was so whisper quiet.

“Why?” He stroked her back, and she sighed.

“Sometimes I just can’t believe the decisions I’ve made—the things I’ve allowed.”

He pulled her back from him, forcing her to face him, and as he wiped the tears from her cheeks more fell.

“Who sleeps with her ex-husband to keep the man away from her daughter and then lives in a house he owns?” It wasn’t a question. She hated herself at that moment, and she was telling him exactly why. “I’m so ashamed.” Her face scrunched up as her lips pulled back in a grimace as she spoke those words, and then she did sob. “If Harper ever knew…how disgusting I am…” She could barely speak through the hitching sobs, and he pulled her back to his chest, refusing to let her say anything else.

“Stop. Don’t do this to yourself. This is
his
fault.”

Her breathing hitched and her sobs continued for a couple minutes, but slowly, her diaphragm started rising and falling in a slow, calm rhythm that matched his. She stayed on his lap in a stupor for at least twenty minutes longer, and then he shifted her to lie back on the couch, and he leaned over her with her legs still lying over his lap.

He kissed her cheek, smiling gently. “The girls need to be picked up in thirty minutes.” He kissed her other cheek. “I’m going to drop you off at my place and go get them—”

She started to interrupt, and he kissed her mouth to stifle it, and when he let her lips go, she was silent as she watched him.

“We’re going to get Chinese takeout on our way back.” He kissed her chin. “Then we’re going to put up the shitty little Christmas tree I bought this afternoon.”

She actually tried to smile, though the wrinkling of her eyes caused a stray tear to fall. He promptly kissed it away from her temple.

“Then, you’re going to relax on my bed with a glass of wine and keep me company while I unpack my bedroom.”

When he kissed her again, he pushed his tongue between her lips, and she quietly moaned. And when he pulled back, she nodded.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“I’m not.”

* * * *

Isaiah listened to the girls talk in the back of his car as he drove to the Chinese restaurant. They were talking about the morning run-in with Todd and Randall, and he listened intently, soaking in the blow by blow that Harper was relating to Nat.

“Your dad is such a jerk.” That was one way to put it.

“Yeah, well my mom’s the one who lives in his house. And it’s not like she ever kicked him out either, so what does that make her?” Harper sounded irritated as she said it.

He was well aware that a fourteen year old could just be angry for the sake of being angry with little empathetic thought behind it at all, but after sitting with Joss on his lap for thirty minutes that afternoon, he wasn’t in the right frame of mind to dismiss it.

“That makes her the woman who’s always looked out for your needs above her own.” He forced his voice to remain steady and calm as he looked at her in the rearview mirror. “She’s had a really hard day because of this, and you need to cut her some slack.”