Held A New Adult Romance(41)

She smiles and parts her thighs. She's shaved bare. Holy shit. "Watch," she says, reaching down to touch herself.

My legs hardly work any more. I half stagger to the end of the giant bed. She watches me with the tip of her tongue caught between her teeth, her perfect little boobs pushed together between her upper arms as she goes to town. "Amber," I manage to say, no mean feat for my poor, lust-soaked brain. "Can I touch you?"

She lets out a tiny ragged moan and arches against her busy fingers. I'm stupefied. All I want in the world right now is to be inside her when she comes. "Only if you mean it," she says, in a voice as horny as I feel.

My lips are dry again, so that "I wanna fuck you," comes out in a rush. "Please. Please let me fuck you."

Amber nods and rubs faster. Her eyes look nearly black in this light. There's a vein standing out hard at the side of her neck when she swallows and when she lifts her hips into her own touch her thighs tremble, like she's close. "Only if you're naked," she whispers. "I want to see you." She reaches out quickly with one hand and yanks open the drawer of the nightstand. For a moment I'm forced to think about why she has condoms handy, but it's not a thought a guy wants to linger on too long, especially when he's performing the world's fastest striptease.

She cries softly out when she sees me. "Oh my God. You're so beautiful."

I can't help but laugh. "Me? Have you seen yourself lately?"

She smiles at that and the smile turns into a breathless laugh that sets me on fire. I'm on her, kissing her thighs, her nipples, her lips, licking the taste of her from her fingers. I'm talking nonsense all over her, my mouth trailing love words all over her skin as I kiss her. You're gorgeous, you're beautiful, you're perfect, you're an angel and a slut and you're heaven and hell and I never want to let you go. Her legs are wrapped around me and her fingers keep searching, trying to curl around my cock, but we're pressed too close together. When I reach her mouth her lips are as dry as mine and it takes us a couple of moments to make our mouths wet enough to kiss.

"Do it hard," she whispers. "I like it like that."

In the moment it takes me to roll on the condom I'm needled again. Was that what he did to her? The one who made her forget who she was? Not me. I'm not the same. I won't be a substitute. But when I get inside her she's tight and silky all at once and all I want to do is pound my hips into hers. "Oh fuck yeah," she moans, and arches her back. She reaches behind her, tugs the pillow out from behind her matted hair and shoves it under her hips.

No, she's setting the pace - and that's fine. She's loud and vocal - harder, there, yes, more, give it to me - and wonder vaguely who the performance is for; me or her. But then it doesn't matter any more, because there's no way she's faking that. Her muscles clench and unclench around me as she throws back her head and lets out a stream of obscenities. I follow her a couple of seconds later, pushing hard and deep where she's still quivering. And I hold her there when we're done, still hard inside her, her legs sprawled and her chest rising and falling. I say her name - once, twice. Three times. This time she doesn't get to forget who she is.





Chapter Fourteen




Amber



He loved me a whole lot more after he'd broken my heart.

Maybe that was how he convinced me we were soul mates - we both wanted the things we couldn't have. We were alike in that respect at least.

I didn't cry much when I came back from Vegas. It was like every sensual faculty had been frozen in the wake of his betrayal - all the smells and colors and textures of the world had drained away, leaving nothing but shades of stale gray, kind of like newsprint. There was no question of me staying in L.A. - even though I was still slightly mad at Everglade, that was nothing compared to how I felt about my Dad. So I went back to San Diego, where Everglade said, "He was a dirtbag anyway - you're better off without him," and showed me a freezer full of heartbreak Ben & Jerry's. I remember that as one of the few things that did make me cry.

A week after I got back Justin sent me a dozen yellow roses - "Yellow because I'm a coward. I'm sorry. I love you." I dumped them straight in the trash, not even thinking to give them to a hospital or someone who might enjoy them. Even from a distance he made me thoughtless, a worse person than I already was.

Everglade broke up with Alex and we became partners in moping, smoking on the balcony and wearing the same sweats for the whole week. "We're Social Lepers' Lonely Heart's Club Band," Everglade would sing. "We hope you will indulge our woe." She made up a whole song - I wish I could remember it. There was one verse about not brushing your teeth until your breath could knock out a horse.