“Fuck,” Thomas cried, as Sasha followed the pulsations of her orgasm with the movement of her body.
If Sasha’s earlier orgasms had been fireworks, this one was an explosion. She’d never screamed from sex; she’d never felt so completely filled with pleasure that there was nothing else left of her but her orgasm.
They slowed as the power of the orgasm began to dissipate. Finally, they were still. Sasha wrapped her arms around Thomas’s neck and closed her eyes. Thomas held her close to him. They stayed there for a long time, completely silent, completely content, as though nothing else in the world existed.
Finally, Sasha maneuvered him out of her. She fell back on the bed, completely spent, feeling like every bone in her body had turned to jelly.
Thomas discarded his condom then joined her at her side. He stroked the exposed flesh of Sasha’s arm.
“You’re a goddess.”
“I don’t think your ego could handle being called a god,” she replied.
He laughed. “I thought you got it, Sasha. That it’s all bravado. It’s all acting. I don’t think I’m a god. Far from it.”
Sasha reached out and pressed a finger to his lips. “I get it Thomas. I get it.”
Chapter Five
Sasha woke to the sound of her cell phone ringing. She slung her hand out and grabbed it.
“Hello?”
“There you are,” came Kelly’s voice.
Sasha rubbed her bleary eyes. She became suddenly aware of the silky sheets twisted up around her and the smell of sweat. She looked to her right. Thomas was there—fast asleep.
Shit!
“Why aren’t you at your desk?” Kelly said.
“I’m sorry. I slept in. I’m coming now.”
“Hey, slow down. I’m not demanding you come in at nine in the morning. We have flexi-time for a reason. I was just calling about the article. Did you make your mind up about whether to print?”
“Yes. Don’t. In fact, shred it. Burn it.”
There was a pause. Then Kelly said, suspiciously, “Are you still with him?”
Busted.
Sasha sighed. “Yes. And I was wrong. There’s more to him than I realized.” Then something about the way Kelly phrased her question made Sasha pause. “What do you mean, ‘Are you still with him?’”
Sasha listened to the sound of Kelly lighting her cigarette and taking a huge inhalation.
“‘Still’ as in you were papped having dinner with him last night at about ten,” Kelly said. “It looked like a heated argument. I figured you were getting more ammunition for your article. But now you’re telling me to pull it because you’ve fallen for this guy. What am I supposed to print now?”
“I’ll write you another.”
“Of course you’ll write me another one. What I mean is, what’s the spin going to be? You’ve got a platform here. Be bold and write about your fiery night of passion like Alicia did last time. It’s only your career we’re talking about here. Don’t fuck it up.”
She hung up. Sasha sat there stunned.
Thomas stirred awake. “Who was that?”
“My boss.”
He sat up, suddenly startled. “The interview. I forgot all about it.”
Sasha turned to him. In the daylight, his scars looked angrier and more pronounced.
“Kelly wants me to write an article about us sleeping together.”
“You don’t want to?”
“Of course I don’t. I want to be a serious journalist, not some ditzy intern who supposedly slept her way to the top!”
Thomas smiled sleepily and fell back against the pillow. “I can put you in touch with some people I know at the BBC. I have a whole network of influential friends who’d happily scratch my back. If it’s serious journalism you want, then fuck the internship and that tacky magazine.”
“I’m being serious,” Sasha snapped.
“So am I,” Thomas replied between his yawn.
“The BBC?” she said with a faint laugh. “And then what? I move to England with you and we live happily ever after?”
Thomas opened one of his eyes and regarded her. “Sure. Why not?”
Sasha stopped. She was being sarcastic. “‘Why not?’ Because that’s the sort of thing you spend a long time thinking about. That’s the sort of thing you do after months of dating, not after two nights!”
Thomas ran his fingers along the length of her bare arm. “Look, I’m just saying that this isn’t the end of the world. You’re turning it into a crisis. It’s just an article.”
She frowned. “It’s the world to me, Thomas. It’s the culmination of hours of study, years of sacrifice.”