“Oh, Ky. I’m sorry. I thought for sure you’d get my message. I told you to call me right away if it would be a problem. When I didn’t hear from you”—she shrugged again—“I figured you’d made plans to grab dinner and a movie with some of the other instructors, or something. Why don’t you join us?”
Third wheel on her sister’s date? Never. “No, no.” Hefting her gym bag higher on her shoulder, she said, “I appreciate the offer, but I’ll head down to BJ’s for a few hours. It’s fine.” She backed out of the kitchen. “Say ‘hi’ to Ian for me, and, um, have fun.”
Stacy’s heartfelt “Thanks, Ky. You’re the best!” followed her out of the apartment.
“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered to herself on the way downstairs. Back in her car, she tried to muster up some enthusiasm for dinner alone at the local sports bar. She didn’t even know what season it was, sports-wise. Maybe there’d be some tennis or basketball games on to help her kill time? Or maybe she’d just get dinner and then drive on up to Sunset and see a movie.
Somehow, during the course of weighing her options, she bypassed BJ’s, crossed Sunset, and worked her way along Laurel Canyon. Without really thinking things through, she found herself parked in front of Trevor’s house. Apparently some appetites trumped others.
Would it be so wrong to indulge the craving? Be like Stacy for once, take what she wanted, and get on with her life. She couldn’t afford more. That much she knew. Allowing herself to fall for Trevor threatened to turn her from a determined, goal-oriented woman to a clinging basket case, completely dependent on him for her happiness and sense of fulfillment.
Stacy’s usual approach to physical intimacy represented her only viable option aside from abstinence. Comparing twenty-three years of abstinence to a couple nights with Trevor, she could say with utter certainty, abstinence sucked.
Lights shone through the windows facing the street, making it easy to see his Yukon in the driveway. While she sat there, debating her next move, a car pulled to the curb behind her and a man wearing a Panda Pagoda uniform stepped out, carrying a large paper bag. She watched his progress up Trevor’s front walkway to the door and sat, holding her breath, as he rang the bell and waited. A few seconds later Trevor appeared, in well-worn jeans and nothing else, looking rough and rumpled and impossibly gorgeous. He took the bag, handed the guy some cash, and then zoomed in on her as if she’d parked in a spotlight. Which she might as well have done, she realized, considering she’d left the car idling with the headlights on.
The Panda Pagoda driver sped away, leaving her alone in front of the house. Her heart thumped away in double time as Trevor sauntered down his walkway and along the sidewalk to where she sat. Unhurried, he walked around to the driver’s side and crouched beside her open window. Her eyes gobbled him up, from his thick, disheveled hair—which looked all the darker thanks to the stark white bandage at his temple—to the gold flecks in his deep brown irises. His lip curved ever so slightly, forming a ghost of a grin. Her body answered with a cascade of tingles starting in her stomach and flowing like mercury to all her erogenous zones. Many, many erogenous zones. Possibly, she was one big erogenous zone.
“Fancy meeting you here.”
Self-consciousness doused the tingling a little, but not much. True, she had no explanation for her sudden, uninvited appearance, but he didn’t look upset to see her.
“I was in the neighborhood.”
He stood, reached in her window, and unlocked her door.
“I probably should have called, but I really wasn’t planning…”
He pulled the door open, reached in and killed the engine, and unlatched her seat belt.
“What I mean to say is—” Speech, and thought, became impossible because he leaned in and covered her mouth with his.
The tingling surged, more powerful and concentrated than ever. God, she was predictable. One kiss from Trevor and she turned into a puddle of need. She barely noticed him hauling her out of the front seat and molding her to his body because she was too busy trying to touch every inch of his bare skin—his shoulders, chest, a
nd hard, flat stomach.
Somehow they made it inside his house without falling, which was a good thing, because if they’d gone horizontal at any point during the trip, she felt fairly certain they would have ended up having sex in his front yard. By the time he kicked the door closed, his hands had found their way into her sweats, cupping her backside, splaying his long fingers over her cheeks in a way that made her arch and squirm to bring them lower, closer where the tingling was now concentrated, with an almost painful urgency. When he lifted her so he could grind the hard, thick ridge of his erection against the cleft between her thighs, she moaned into his mouth. Her fingers speared into his hair and held on as the kiss became hotter, wetter, and hungrier.
“Your head?” she gasped, when they broke for air.
“What head?” he asked, diving back into the kiss.
The next thing she knew, her world toppled. She fell into his bed and he followed her down. Pinned between two hundred pounds of hard-packed muscle and a firm mattress, her breath escaped in a rush. “Sorry, I interrupted your dinner,” she managed.
He worked his way from the curve of her neck to her ear with his lips, and in a harsh whisper, said, “You are my dinner.” With that announcement, he pushed her tank top up to her armpits, sprang the front clasp of her sports bra, and feasted on one achingly sensitive breast. Using his hand to plump the flesh, he took her deep into his mouth, and then drew back so his lips slowly contracted around the tight crest. Hips pinned to the mattress, she couldn’t rock against him the way she wanted, and the pressure between her legs intensified. By the time her frustrated groan found its way free, he’d already moved on to the other breast.
“Trevor…” Begging, she arched her back, giving his wonderful, talented mouth full access.
“Time for dessert,” he murmured against her skin, so softly she didn’t at first recognize his words as a warning. The next thing she knew, he yanked her already loose sweats down and off—panties included—and parted her legs. Her gasp turned into a cry when his mouth fastened over her center and his hot tongue laved her in exactly the right spot. She bit her lip to keep from crying out, but her hips were completely out of her control. They lifted and pressed, lifted and pressed, awkwardly seeking and retreating from the addictive agony.
It was too much, too fast, and yet still not nearly enough. She wanted him filling her, stretching her, moving inside her. “I want you,” she cried. “Now.”
He raised his head just enough to let his breath tease her wet, quivering flesh. “Not yet. I’m still hungry. You can take a little more.”
No, she couldn’t. If his talented tongue found its target even once more, she’d shatter into a billion pieces. “Oh, God, you have to stop,” she pleaded and, with a burst of energy, tried to roll away from the sweet assault.
He let her roll. When she was belly down on the mattress, he leaned over her and pulled a condom from the nightstand drawer. Then he snaked an arm under her hips, and in one seemingly effortless motion, hauled her knees up under her. The sudden move forced a squeak of surprise from her throat. A rip of foil, the roll of latex, and then he sank into her from behind.
The next sound she heard was her own grateful moan. From this position, his penetration seemed to reach all the way to her soul.