Her Dad's Friend(5)

I watch his shadow move across the floor and say, "I was genuinely  surprised. Mom and Dad-and even Emily-are usually always so predictable.  I'm glad you came."

"Me too," he says.

Shaking out the nerves, I push out my chest and raise my chin. I'm a  Viking. A raider. He's mine. I'll beat him over the head with a club and  drag him to my room if I have to.

"Cute apartment," he says.

He wants to make small talk and that's fine, but we can do that after  several orgasms. Right now I have the female equivalent of blue balls  and an itch that desperately needs to be scratched.

I poke my head around the doorway. Not exactly the charging Viking I'd pumped myself up to be. I'm getting to that. Baby steps.

"Thanks."

Watching him move around my kitchen, I can imagine domestic bliss with  him, rubbing his feet at the end of a hard day's work, putting a baby to  bed then making love all night. Imagining what it would be like to warm  his bed every night has all the pent-up tension from the day starting  to drip down my leg.

I go into the small kitchen. It's a hideous tight space with black and  white checkered laminate flooring, crooked cupboard doors, and chipped  counter tops. We can't move without bumping into each other. I slide in  behind him, holding on to him and pressing my breasts against the tight  column of muscle in his back. He stiffens and makes a noise in the base  of his throat I just barely hear over the sound of the faucet running.         

     



 

"Sorry," I say, squeezing past him. "I need to get a glass."

When he tries to maneuver out of my way, stepping behind me, I press my  backside against his groin, pinning him against the fridge.

"Rachael," he says, voice low and cautious. "We can't." There's no conviction behind his words.

He puts his hands on my hips as if to push me away, but makes no attempt  at stopping me as I arch my back and begin rolling my hips, cradling  his growing cock in the cleft of my ass.

He groans and leans forward to press his lips against my neck. "We shouldn't," he says this time.

Can't and shouldn't are two very different things.

I close my eyes as he begins to rub against me. "But it's my birthday," I say.

He turns me around so that I face him. His eyes narrow, chest rising and  falling as if he's forcing himself to breathe. A tug-of-war plays out  on his features, the pull between lust and guilt. I watch his battle  until finally he swallows and crushes his lips against mine, kissing me.  He takes my bottom lip between his teeth, gently nibbling and sucking. I  moan into his open mouth. The tip of his tongue darts out, finding  mine, tentatively at first, then winding together.

His tongue ripples over mine, gliding across my teeth and the ticklish  spot on the roof of my mouth that raises goosebumps over my entire body  when touched. He grasps the sides of my head, holding me like I might  take flight if he were to let go-and it seems entirely possible because  I'm buoyant. Floating. Inside, my body and mind are a perfect storm  where everything is crashing together and coming apart and completely  obliterated. No one has ever kissed me like this before, with such  desperation, and I know that no other way of kissing will ever be  satisfying after him. He will ruin me for everyone else who comes after.  That thought is terrifying because I don't want there to be anyone  after Paul. For me, it's always been about him. It will always be about  him. I will chase this feeling to the end of the earth.

When we break for air, lungs heaving, I touch his abs, brush the tips of  my fingers lightly over the muscles that cobble his stomach, caressing  the micro-hairs. He shivers and leans forward, kissing my eyelids, my  forehead, nose, chin. He kisses me everywhere on my face but my mouth,  teasing me, sending me through the ceiling.

One hand cradles my head while another slides down my neck, down the  middle of my chest, stopping on my ribs. He lifts my swimsuit cover to  my waist and slips his hand beneath it. His thumb just barely touches  the soft swell underneath my left breast around my bikini top. His skin  is hot. Heat radiates into every part of me.

His entire hand rests on my right breast now. I lean forward,  encouraging him to grip me, or squeeze, but he's taking his time,  savoring this. It's a slow, agonizing exploration. This is the first  time our age difference has become obvious to me. I'm used to young men  my age diving right into the deep end without taking the time to get  used to, and enjoy, the water. Part of me wants him to just rip off my  bathing suit and be inside me already. But then this will be over, this  lovely torture.

He's watching me, our eyes locked together as his hand slides lower,  touching the front of my bikini bottoms. I'm breathless as I wait for  him to make his next move.

He must see the anguish I'm feeling, because his lips move into a teasing smile and he asks, "Is this what you want?"

Moving my hips, pushing myself into his hand, I say, "More than anything."

His lips crash against mine again in a fevered kiss. As he rubs me  through the fabric, I make gasping, yearning noises. He takes my tongue,  sucking on it.

"You're so wet," he says more to himself than to me when he releases my  tongue, and I can't say anything because I'm off in some euphoric land  that, up until now, I thought was just a myth talked about in romance  novels.

"I want you inside me," I beg.

I've never been good at waiting. Even though I'm sure prolonging these  feelings will be worth the wait, I don't know how much more of this  teasing I can take.

Just as his fingers start to move under the fabric, I hear the front  door to my apartment open on whining hinges. The moment he hears it,  Paul hurls himself away from me like he's been shot, his eyes wide. He  looks almost confused seeing me standing in front of him.

"Rachael, are you here?" Emily's voice calls out. "I forgot my dorm key."

"It's okay," I tell him, "It's just Emily." But when I go to take his hand, he moves it out of my reach.

Scrubbing his hands over his face, he sighs and says, "I'm sorry, Rach, this shouldn't have happened. I need to go."         

     



 

"No, wait-" I start to say, but he's already out of the kitchen. He  rushes past Emily, who looks at me, then at Paul, then at me again and  her mouth falls open. Once he grabs his keys from the hook beside the  door, he's gone without even looking back.

"Oh my god, what just happened?" she asks.

I sigh. "I don't know. Everything was perfect. We were  …  you know,  getting there, then he heard the door and completely panicked." I plop  down on the couch and cover my face with my hands. "Now he's probably  never going to talk to me again."

Emily sits beside me. "I'm so sorry. I fucked up. I should've called first."

"It's not your fault," I say, though it kind of was. Still, if he wasn't  feeling it, and things went farther than they had, he might've looked  at me like that after sex and I would've felt ten times worse than I do  now.

"Want some ice cream?" she asks.

What I want is to call him and find out what the hell just happened. But  instead of being that girl, I decide it's probably best to drown myself  in sugar rather than do something I'll probably regret later.





Chapter 3




It's been two days and I haven't heard from Paul since he escaped from  my apartment without so much as a wave goodbye. I know he's still in  town because my dad called, asking if I wanted to go out to dinner with  them last night. But I couldn't go. If Paul doesn't want to see me, I'm  not going to force myself on him, no matter how badly I wanted to accept  the invitation.

In class I can't focus. Which is crazy because English is my favorite  subject, but all I can think about is where exactly I went wrong with  Paul. Things were going so great, then as soon as there was a  distraction, he looked at me as if I were a leper.

We've spent the last couple of years flirting, which felt like years of  foreplay building up to the moment we finally found release. Now I can't  help but wonder if, for him, the fantasy was better than the reality. I  feel stupid for not thinking about that consequence. Rejection sucks.  It sucks even worse when the person rejecting you is someone you might  actually-dare I say it-love.

"Rachael?"

My self-pity party is crashed when I hear my name. Looking up from the  window, I see the entire class staring at me and Mr. Oliver standing by  my desk. A pretentious academic, his brow-beatings are stern enough to  leave a bruise. I don't know how he can stand to wear that tweed jacket  in this heat while I'm sweating oceans wearing a tank top. He bends over  my desk to look out the window.

"Is there a riot out there, someone streaking, perhaps?" he asks.

My face is so hot it's numb. I know I'm a horrible shade of pink. "Not  yet, but I'll keep an eye out just in case" I say, which gets a few  snickers from my classmates.