“My only serious boyfriend in college, Thad, seemed to understand. He made me feel beautiful. He was a grad student and seemed so sophisticated compared to anyone else I knew. But he always had a reason to explain why I couldn’t see him on the weekends. I ignored my gut feelings when he would cancel plans, and turned a blind eye to all the signs he was a liar.”
“He disappointed you.”
I nod. “Yes. It turns out he already had my dream life with another woman. His wife had the babies with him I’d been dreaming of.”
“He was a fool.” Andre squeezes my fingers. “And I won’t pretend I’m sorry about that. Because I don’t know what I would have done if I’d met you when you were married to someone else.” He looks at me with probing eyes. “That’s your deepest secret? That you want to have a baby.”
I sigh. “It might not seem like a big deal to you but my mom had me young. The people in our hometown treated her like an outcast. Small towns can be a great place to grow up but they can also be a harsh place if you do something they don’t approve of. Being a pregnant, single, college-dropout was definitely not something they approved of. I can never tell my mom I want to have a baby young. Having me ruined her life.”
“That can’t be true,” he argues. “I’m sure she would agree that you are the best thing she’s ever done.”
The words warm me. My mom used to always tell me that when I was a little girl.
“How did you know she used to say that?”
“Simple. I’m looking at you.”
While my heart is busy exploding at his sweet words, he turns and I can feel the rush of his breath on my cheek. Now that the sun has gone down it’s dark in the room, the only light coming from the television.
My mind is telling me to do one thing and my body is crying out for me to throw myself into his arms. And it’s getting harder to pretend I only care about him as a friend.
His lips feather gently over my eyes, cheeks and then finally, finally my mouth.
I clasp his shirt in my fists and pull him closer. With a stark, animal sound, his hands settle on my lower back as we kiss, only breaking apart to take desperate, greedy breaths. His taste explodes on my tongue, heady like sandalwood, cinnamon and man.
It’s too much at once, too many sensations to process.
He groans and the sound is almost swallowed up by the desperate way our mouths connect. “You don’t know what you do to me.”
“I don’t want to be just friends.” I admit in a rush of breath. It feels good to say it aloud.
“Tell me what you do want, baby.” Andre skims a finger over my cheek. “You know you have only to ask.”
At the husky timbre of his voice, my nipples tighten. His finger trails down my neck and over the swell of one breast. This has to be a dream, a wine-fueled hallucination. But if this is a dream, it can’t hurt to ask for one thing.
“I want you. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything more.”
Andre moves so quietly in the dark, his breath warm on my neck as he embraces me. His scent overwhelms my senses and I react instinctively, curling against him.
He growls, the arm around my waist tightening until I can’t move. He holds my gaze unblinking as he lowers his head and I just melt into a puddle of lust, my mouth open against his.
He lifts me into his arms easily and carries me down the hallway to the bedroom I’ve never seen. It’s too dark to see much until he turns on a low light next to the bed. Then I don’t care what the room looks like because he lowers himself on top of me.
My hands travel over the flat planes of his chest and around to his back, which tenses as my fingers move over him. He’s hard everywhere, his arms like steel cages locking me in place. His lips glide over my cheek to torment the skin on my throat.
I wiggle out of the tight skirt I wore today and then unbutton my blouse. When my plain black bra comes into view, I send up a silent prayer that it’s in decent shape and not one of my bras with a weird design on it.
Not that I think Andre would even notice. He unhooks the back deftly and pushes the cups out of the way so he can take a taut nipple in his mouth. I bite my lip to stifle a wild cry.
“You don’t have to hide the sounds of your pleasure. I want to hear what my touch does to you.”
“It makes me feel like I’m on fire.” It’s not an exaggeration. His lips burn against my skin, putting every nerve ending at attention.
His dark head moves back and forth between the tips of my breasts, alternately sucking and biting on them. I never knew I could feel these sensations, never guessed at the amount of passion untapped within me. The things he’s doing with his tongue make me want to crawl out of my skin and all over h
im. I want him inside me and all over me.
I never want him to stop.