Unexpected Oasis (9 page)

I'm officially intrigued. And excited. "Oh yeah?"

He bobs his eyebrows at me. "Oh yeah. Have a seat." He nods toward the bed.

Sitting on the extra-firm mattress, I quickly unlace my boots and kick them off (hopefully to keep them from getting in the way later) as he retrieves something from the over-the-shoulder sack he carries everywhere. The one I'm sure is filled with guns, ammo, grenades, and judging by the way he eats, probably protein bars.

"Wet wipes?" I wonder as he sets the package on the comforter next to me. The hard mattress sinks when he joins me.

"Heaven."

"What else do you keep in that bag?"

He just winks again and pulls a white cloth from the container. I watch in wonder as he lifts it to my forehead and then, close my eyes in bliss as he gently rubs the cool, cleansing cloth over my skin.

"Definitely heaven," I murmur.

"So I take it this
'effed up relationship'
is why you're here," he says after a moment, the wipe caressing my cheek. "Want to tell me about it?" The cloth makes another delicious swipe across my jaw.

"No," I answer honestly.

The cloth caresses the other side of my face, brushing across my mouth before his lips gently press into mine. "You can trust me," he murmurs into them. "Please."

Trust. What a concept.

But I do trust him. With my life. With my safety. Why can't I trust him with my heart?

"Why?" I wonder. I hear another wipe being pulled from the container and then the cool fabric is on my neck. "Why do you want to know?"

He kisses the side of my mouth. I turn toward him, eager to explore the salt of his kiss again, hungry to feel his tongue in my mouth.

"It's part of who you are," he says into my lips. "I want to know you, everything about you, every inch of you."

I open my eyes to a mixture of concern and lust in his beautiful brown gaze. I'd be happy to skip the concern and focus on the lust. I'm half afraid when he discovers I'm nothing more than cast aside trash the lust will disappear and be replaced with pity.

"Please," he repeats. That deep growl of his could potentially make me do just about anything, especially when he begs. "Trust me."

The desire to open my heart to him is overwhelming. And incredibly frightening. I don't know why I feel compelled to share something that nearly destroyed me with him. But I want to. I really do.

"Are you sure? You want to hear this? It's pretty pathetic."

"Andrea…" His tone is almost scolding.

I sigh. "Fine. But I'm warning you, it's neither glamorous nor spectacular."

"What makes you think I long for glamorous?"

I give him a sidelong glance. He smiles.

"And the woman next to me is nothing short of spectacular."

It wasn't that long ago I would have agreed with him.

"Okay…" I inhale and exhale loudly. "Seven months ago," I begin, the tension in my throat making my voice tight, "I thought my life was pretty much perfect. I was happily married, had a great job, a fabulous house, an amazing husband… Or so I thought." I can't help the roll of my eyes. "The only thing missing in my life were children. We'd been trying for a few years without any success. We were getting ready to start fertility treatments, but after some rather unpleasant tests, I got the whammy of bad news. I'm broken. Infertile. Barren as a desert."

"I'm so sorry."

"Oh it gets better," I tell him bitterly. "I was struggling with the realization I will never have children of my own when my husband, a professor at KU, decided to knock up one of his grad students. And then leave me for her."

Every muscle in his body seems to tense up. It makes the curved muscles of his shoulders grow a good two inches. "What a fucking prick."

"My exact sentiment." I sigh again. "I was handling everything okay considering. I mean, I wasn't dancing in the streets or anything, but I was managing. Until…" I find myself fiddling with the edge of my shirt.

"Until what?"

"Until I ran into the grad student…at the grocery store…wearing a tight T-shirt and a very obvious
baby bump
." I openly cringe. I hate that term, but it's the only one that fit. "I made arrangements to come here the very next day."

I lift my eyes to look at him. Tiny grains of sand cling to his salt and pepper stubble, jet-black eyebrows, and eyelashes, and a fine layer of red covers his tanned face.

"I think you need your own wipe-down," I say, ready to move away from my past.

His teeth are a flash of white in the dimly lit room. "Maybe later." He pulls a fresh wipe from the container and slides it over my neck. "What your ex-husband did was despicable. I feel the need to apologize for my entire sex."

I try to shrug it off. The cool fabric sliding over my skin helps. "I'm over it. For the most part."

"Are you over him?" I can't be certain, but there seems to be a slight edge to his voice.

Am I over Jim? I have to think about it. I know I'm still mourning the loss of a relationship, the loss of a future, the loss of a life I thought I had, and the companionship of a partner. But am I mourning Jim?

"Yeah. I think so," I say. "I mean, I'm still dealing with the betrayal. And the fact that the man I married, the man I thought I loved, doesn't exist. It was all a lie. I don't even know how to process those years of my life anymore. Moments I thought made me happy…? Nothing but lies."

I don't realize I'm crying until Trey wipes the tears from my cheeks. His lips press tenderly against mine. "This isn't a lie," he says. "Or this." He moves to the other side of my mouth. "Or this." His kiss caresses my cheek.

It's the perfect escape from my self-induced pity party, one I'm ready to take full advantage of. I'm ready to get back to the touching and kissing and away from the gut spilling.

I lean into him, arching my back and giving him full access to the side of my neck. Which he takes. His stubble feels divine as it brushes roughly against my skin. His lips are molten heat. I'm ready to melt into it. Ready to be transformed from the lead bar I've been for the last several months into a razor-sharp sword meant to conquer the world.

Okay, maybe not the world, but at least my insecurity.

Pushing Trey back, I tuck my feet under my butt and reach across him and retrieve a wipe from the container. "I think it's your turn now," I say, feeling suddenly bold, fearless. It's like the burden of the last several months has been lifted. So Jim cheated on me with a woman twelve years my junior. So he got her pregnant when I never will be. I'm here with this gorgeous, amazing specimen of a man. A man better looking and more caring than Jim could ever be—and with a six-pack Jim never had.

And I feel more alive than I have in years. The heat Trey creates inside me is more intense than anything I've ever experienced.

Jim didn't break me. I'm still here and I'm very much intact.

With a grin I can tell is too eager and wide, I sit back on my heels, waving the wet wipe like a white flag. "Ready?"

He tosses the wipe in his hand into the bedside trashcan and then drops back onto his palms, elbows locked. His head resting on massive shoulders, he spies me from under half-lidded eyes. "Go for it." He closes his eyes and…waits.

And suddenly I'm reminded he is pure sex-on-a-stick. 

I swallow any lingering self-consciousness. Fuck Jim. Fuck the insecurity he created in me. Trey has never once indicated he finds me anything but interesting and desirable. And I have never denied that he is anything but. 

I have to perch on my knees to reach his face, but once there I wobble unsteadily. I place a hand on his shoulder to steady myself. It's like gripping a cantaloupe and definitely as firm.

He tips his face toward my hand as I delicately drag the wipe across his strong brow. His chest heaves and I swear he sighs. It adds to my sudden reclamation of confidence.

"Sometimes I wonder if the whole
Jim
fiasco would have been easier if the woman he decided to knock up was, well, over thirty." I pull the wipe delicately over his defined nose. "But then I realized I can't compete with a college girl. Someone closer to my age would have been worse. Then there'd be something wrong with me besides just being old."

He cracks an eye to look at me. "You aren't old. Besides, there's nothing wrong with aging. You do realize the alternative is death."

I laugh. "I know. It doesn't make it any easier though." I trace the line of his jaw, the stubble snagging the wipe as I go. "And it's different for you."

"How so?"

"When men age, they become more desirable, I mean how many
sexiest men alive
have been over 30, or even 40?"

"Possibly, but in this line of work I fight the clock every day. When you're the hired gun, brawn over brains is highly desirable. No one wants their safety entrusted to a geezer."

"I think you have a ways to go before you reach geezerdom," I tell him. "And a hell of a lot longer before you lose an ounce of sex appeal. Women…not so much. Much over thirty-five and we become useless, obsolete shells of infertility. And the only time we're allowed to be sexy is if we're cougaring it up and teaching twenty-somethings what to do with their penises."

He laughs. "I'm not going to deny the media's warped obsession with youth. But…" Grabbing my waist, he pulls me to him. To keep from falling, I'm forced to throw a leg over his thighs and end up straddling him. Wearing a devilish in, he brings me closer. "I don't share that obsession." His lips brush lightly across mine. My entire body ramps up in heat. "In fact, I find age damn sexy. I find you damn sexy."

"You don't say," I murmur.

"I do." His hands slide down my backside as his kiss intensifies. When he pulls me into his thick erection, I can't help but roll my hips against it. I'm immediately overcome with tendrils of pleasure. "Fuck," he groans, and pushes into me.

I suck my lip into my mouth, pressing down my teeth into the sensitive flesh. Lip still between my teeth, I give him a coy smile.

He looks at my mouth, then my eyes, then back to my mouth. "Fuck this." Tucking his hands under my ass, he flips me onto my back, covering my body with his and my mouth with his.

The weight of him is like heaven. He's so firm and warm. Everything. His chest, his thick, muscular thighs between mine, his cock, his lips.

His lips trail lower, down my neck and over my collarbones. He peels the edge of my shirt down with one hand as the other snakes under the fabric and my bra. Cupping one breast, his tongue traces the crest, and after pulling the shirt and bra down even further, my exposed nipple.

He lingers there for a minute before impatiently ripping off my shirt. I arch up to give him access to my bra, which he expertly removes, his lips and tongue finding mine as he does.     

His mouth makes its way to my stomach and before I can breathe, he's removing my pants. When he leans back on his heels to pull off his shirt, I sit forward before anything else can transpire, curling my legs and tucking them behind me. I have to see him, touch him, taste him.

Not that I'm surprised, but his body is magnificent. All male, with muscle in all the right places and the perfect amount of hair covering his chest and trailing into his pants. Just the sight of him makes my core clench tight. I reach forward with a tentative hand and press my palm to his chest. His skin is warm, almost hot, and so, so firm. My other hand runs over his shoulder and then cups his bicep. It's like gripping my thigh only much, much harder. I don't think I could ever get over how goddamn fantastic his body looks and feels. I am more than ready to see the rest of it.

He watches me as I restrain my desire to devour him and instead slowly run my hand over his pec and down his stomach, tracing the bumps of his six-pack until I reach his belt. Gripping it I lean forward, my tongue retracing my hand's steps, pausing only to caress his nipple and dip into the valleys and ridges between his muscles. My free hand trails down his arm and he squeezes it as it passes over his hand. The gesture is both romantic and sweet, and normally I'd love to savor the moment but right now I can't. I
need
to get his belt off.

The belt thong releases easily enough, but his cock is straining so hard against his pants, I have to be careful unzipping the taut fabric. My bottom lip is raw from being pressed between my teeth as the opening zipper reveals his large cock. No underwear. Nothing. Just him in all his magnificent glory.

His brow is sexily furrowed when I look up at him. With a grin, I slide my hand into his pants and cup his balls, and then slide his entire length into my mouth.

He lets out a moan that shoots heat straight to my core and I undulate my hips in anticipation. His hand rests gently on the back of my head as I run his cock in and out of my mouth. He has enough length I'm able to use both hands in addition to my mouth, and with the guttural groans and breathy moans coming from him, pleasuring him is pleasuring me.

Abruptly, he pulls out of my mouth. I look at him in question.

"I don't want to come yet," he explains.

I rise on my knees, walking my fingers up the muscles of his abdomen like they're ladder rails. "Why? Can't you go again?" I tease.