As Alec began to sink inside, I told myself this was necessary to save myself. It had nothing to do with the debilitating need he’d created in me. I took another inch of him in my shameful body and continued to lie to myself. This is a transaction only. Sharing your body with him is closing the deal. You don’t enjoy it, or the sound of his hurried breath in your ear.
But I did enjoy it.
I moaned as he moved all the way inside until we were completely connected. The stretch of him was uncomfortable, yet familiar. It made me feel useful and needed.
He groaned with satisfaction against the side of my neck, and then lifted his head to peer down at me. “Okay so far?”
Again I nodded. Who knew what would come out of my foolish mouth?
“Good.” He brushed his lips over mine, and began to move. His first thrust was slow, but deep, and in response, my legs drew up around his waist. This groan from him now was indecent, and I echoed it sincerely.
My back was slippery with sweat against the smooth floor, and my tailbone hurt knocking into the hardwood, but the sensation of him claiming me overpowered it. I shut out thought. My hands drifted around his shoulders and I hung on as Alec took command. He had one rough palm on my waist, pinning me down while he drove into me.
“Jesus, you feel good,” he said.
I shut my eyes, bashful. I wanted to be confident, but that had vanished once the sex started. His lips trailed kisses down the side of my throat, and his five o’clock shadow scratched at me like sandpaper.
I whimpered when his hand slid up from my waist and settled on my breast, massaging me where I felt heavy and full. His touch was electric and perfect. Goldilocks had found the bed to sleep in that felt just right to her.
He screwed me on the floor of his studio for an eternity that I didn’t want to end, even as my hips ached and I was sure my spine was bruised. His thrusts grew powerful and serious, and I gulped for air, unable to do anything but receive and endure. I shook like an earthquake around him and drove my nails into the bare skin of his back. It was the most violent sex I’d had, even though it was clear Alec was trying to be gentle. The stress on my body was solely due to the location.
The dark, sick part of me wondered if Jonathan would be proud of me. Not because I was having sex that hurt or might leave bruises, but that I’d allowed my desire to lead me as I once had, rather than my goals. Tonight I wasn’t thinking about the end game. Only about enjoying sex and getting pleasure from another person.
“Fuck, I want you on top,” Alec said. He took his sweaty, heaving chest away from me and flung himself down on his back, grabbed my waist, and pulled me toward him.
Being in this position brought both physical relief and mental anxiety. I climbed up on him and lowered myself down on his shaft, inch by slow inch, and shuddered. His hands were all over me, exploring and caressing. It distracted me from my worry and self-consciousness. I tried to relax into his hands and let him mold me into whatever creature he wanted me to be.
He guided me to sit upright on him. I rocked my hips in time with his and flashes of electricity sparked from our connection.
It became infinitely easier to go with it when his fingers moved to where we were joined and stirred. My body went on an autopilot program and I gyrated my hips to maximize his wicked touch. I panted and moaned as something inside me tightened. It gripped my lungs and annihilated everything but a primal need.
“That’s it,” Alec urged in a low voice. “Show me.”
I didn’t like being on display, but I wasn’t in control anymore. I surrendered to the ecstasy of my orgasm and launched forward, crushing my breasts to his chest, and fused my mouth with his. Pleasure rippled through my body, wave after wave, and it poured from my mouth in breathless moans, followed almost immediately by his own release.
His long gasp of satisfaction was . . . sexy. Erotic. Pride that he’d found his completion with me only last a few moments and then was replaced by a negative voice in my head which sounded suspiciously like my mother’s. I was a warm body, nothing particularly special. Just a vessel for Alec to take pleasure in. He’d used me just as I’d used him.
But as I rolled off of him and lay on my side, he trapped me in his arms and squeezed me tight against him, molding our bodies together in an intimate embrace. I didn’t feel interchangeable as I had with Erik. How strange was it I had more connection with this artist in a single encounter than the man I'd left my husband for?
Alec’s fingertips skimmed over my arm. Up and down in an infinite loop, causing goosebumps to lift on my skin. We’d ceased moving and my sweat-dampened skin cooled enough that I shivered.
His phone buzzed from the pocket of his discarded jeans and he retrieved it. He glanced at the screen and sent it to voicemail, but the interruption broke the spell of the moment. I sat up and reached for my bra with unsure hands.
Alec sat as well, climbed to his feet, and pulled his pants up around his hips. I dressed as he disappeared through a doorway, and I heard what I assumed was the lid of a trash can. Awkwardness descended on us when he returned, his jeans done back up. He bent at the waist, picked up his shirt and tugged it on. I scrambled into my clothes and pulled myself to my feet, looking any
where in the studio but at him.
Alec Rafferty. My new partner, and technically my new lover.
Footsteps carried him to the wall, and a light switch snapped on. I blinked against the harsh, artificial light. Everything was less sexy now, and much more real.
Like he sensed my trepidation, he closed in and cradled my face in his palms. It forced my gaze on him. His eyes were curious. It seemed he wanted to peer inside me and see what I was thinking.
“Don’t,” he said softly.
“Don’t, what?”
“Don’t overthink what just happened. I enjoyed it. I’d like to do it again sometime, but not if it’s going to make it difficult to work together.”