He didn’t deny her claim. “Are you wet for me?”
“Aren’t I always? And my clit’s swollen. It won’t take me long to come for you.” She rolled on her belly and rose on her knees. “Especially now. I’m on my stomach. Easiest way for me to come. If I just slide my fingers inside…”
“Do it.” His authoritative tone rang through the line, surprising her with its certainty. She should’ve known he’d catch on quick. “Tell me how it feels.”
“You know how it feels inside me. Or have you forgotten already?”
“No.” He growled and her clit pulsed as if he were right beside her. “I’ll never forget how hot your sweet pussy is. You wrap so tight around me that I can’t get deep enough. I could go forever inside you and I’d still ache for more.”
Trembling, she buried her forehead in her pillow and ground herself against her palm. He never talked dirty. She slid her fingers in and out, desperate to keep the friction going, but she couldn’t speak. All she could do was breathe choppily into the phone and hope he understood how much he affected her.
“Baby?”
Hearing “pussy” from his mouth was more natural than a genuine endearment of any kind. He was about to officially kill her. “I’m here, and I’m keeping busy. What about you?”
“Working on it,” he said in a low voice. “Hard when you’re not talking to me, just sort of panting and making unh noises.”
“Speaking of hard, what are you doing? Exactly.”
“Stroking myself, fast. Pretending it’s your hand in my parents’ bathroom. Imagining you’re behind me, whispering in my ear. I can smell you, your soap and your perfume. It reminds me of being outside, in the barn. The smells of hay, earth, and fresh, clean air. Everything so sharp and crisp. That scent’s inside me even when you’re not around. If I breathe in right now, you’re there. Always.”
She bit her lip but it wasn’t enough to quiet her moan. “My thumb’s on my clit, my fingers inside. But it’s your hand. You should be quieting me when I cry out, not this pillow. When I bite it, it’s your shoulder I’m sinking my mouth into. Your back I’m raking my nails down.”
“Harder. Deeper. Take me with you.” He sounded guttural. Urgent. “Make me believe you’re in this bed with me, that neither one of us is alone tonight.”
Vicky complied, flexing her hand as she drove into herself again and again. Her climax hit her so rapidly that she couldn’t warn him, couldn’t even tell him it was happening. All she could do was gasp his name and jerk her fingers in and out while her moisture soaked her fingers.
She’d just slumped into her pillow when he made his own choked sounds of release. She shuddered as if they were her own, absorbing them with a kind of dizzy elation that sent aftershocks spinning through her once again.
His unsteady breaths lulled her into oblivion. Words seemed superfluous. He must’ve agreed, because he didn’t speak either.
Together they could just…be.
A long time later, she whispered, “I think I can sleep now.”
He didn’t answer for so long that she wondered if he was still there. “Me too.”
“Good night, Cory.”
“Good night, Vic.”
…
He’d lied again.
Predawn found Cory at his balcony railing, searching for Orion’s Belt as he’d done way too often lately. It was early in the season for it to be visible, but his high-powered telescope helped. He usually left the telescope in the closet in favor of his binoculars but the clarity of the view this morning had made him bring out the big guns. Sirius winked away madly in the lightening sky, and he foolishly wished on it as he always did. But what he wished for had changed.
She’d done something to him. Maybe a curse, maybe a spell. It had been a long time since he’d had a crush or anything close to it. Infatuation could confuse a lot of things—
No. He wasn’t going to pretend. What he was suffering from went a lot deeper than infatuation or desire. He just didn’t know what he was supposed to do about it.
Some men approached their personal lives with the same focus and zeal they used for business. Not him. He’d had his share of girlfriends over the years, and occasionally he’d considered taking things to the next level. Invariably he’d found some minute flaw in the woman to dissect—or she’d found a not-so-minute flaw in him—that had made the relationship quickly turn sour.
He’d nearly done that here, almost unintentionally. Victoria’s reaction Sunday night to his unavoidable “we’re madly in love” declaration had started the process. God, the wounded look in her whiskey eyes had slayed him. Followed by her booting him out of her town house when he’d been certain she was as eager to have him in her bed as he’d been to get there, then her seeming disinterest in going to the get-together with him, and he’d gone into survival lockdown mode. So much of this whole crazy thing was his fault, but if she was already pulling away, he needed to, as well. It was only prudent.