Just before she slips her fingers into her mouth and sucks on them.
Loudly.
That’s it. I come all over my hand, a shuddery groan leaving me as my stomach heaves. I’ve been a walking hard-on since I left London over a week ago, tense and on fire for only one woman.
Susanna.
I hear a moan and realize it’s her. My eyes pop open just in time to watch as she comes, her fingers working their magic between her clenched thighs, her head thrown back and her eyes closed, a keening sound falling from her lips. I watch in fascination, a residual shiver taking over me, and when it’s all over and she’s lying there like a limp doll, I finally have to say something.
“You are so fucking hot,” I breathe.
She opens her eyes and starts to laugh. And I laugh too. Both of us laugh together for a few minutes, spent and exhausted and exhilarated and feeling so damn alive.
I’m overwhelmed too. Emotional. I’m ready to spill my guts, let her know how I truly feel about her, about us, but at the last second, I clamp my lips together, triumphantly fighting off the urge to confess all.
She’d only think I was saying all that because I just came. And maybe that’s the case.
I don’t know.
“I wish you could come out to California soon,” I say, my voice wistful.
Damn, I sound like a needy bastard. Maybe because I am one.
“I wish I could too, but there is no way that’s happening until you meet my parents,” she says, her prim and proper tone back despite her lying there naked as the day she was born.
“I thought you were an independent single woman.” I’m teasing, but there’s some truth to my words. Does she really have to get her parents’ permission to travel out of the country? She’s twenty-three years old, for Christ sake. She’s younger than me but still a full-blown woman.
“I am, but a trip like that…is momentous. My father doesn’t like the idea of me being an independent single woman. He wouldn’t want me traveling alone,” she says.
“I already met your dad,
remember?”
“Of course I remember, but you two met in a more casual sense, you know?” She wrinkles her nose. “If we’re really in a—relationship, then they’ll want to meet you under more formal circumstances.”
“Like how?” I’m truly baffled. My dad isn’t even in my life, hasn’t been for years, and though I want my mom to like the woman I’m in a relationship with, it wouldn’t make or break that relationship if she didn’t. As in, it’s my relationship. The only opinions that matter are mine and my girl’s.
“They’ll want you to come to the house, and have dinner with us. Spend time together as a family,” she explains. “You’ll need to meet my older brother as well.”
I forgot she had a brother. She doesn’t mention him too much. “Your brother is a cool dude?”
“I wouldn’t call George cool.” She smiles. “He’s rather stiff, like my mother.”
I’m tempted to make a sexual joke about something being stiff, but not while she’s talking about her mother. “Isn’t he going to be the earl someday?”
“He is, and he takes that responsibility very seriously.” She hesitates, offers up a little shrug. “That’s why he’s so stiff.”
Huh. Sounds like George is lots of fun. Sounds like her entire family is fun.
Not really, but hey, I’ll try to think positive.
“I don’t know when I can get back to England. Not any time soon,” I tell her with regret. “We have games scheduled through November and December, and if we make the playoffs, we’re playing into January. With practices and travel time, I’m hardly around.” I barely have time for myself, let alone anyone else.
Maybe asking her to be my girlfriend was the wrong thing to do…
She sighs, then readjusts herself so she’s back under the covers, hiding her delectable body from view. “I should go to bed. I have to work tomorrow.”
Notice how she didn’t even acknowledge what I said. “How often do you work anyway?”