I wasn’t squeamish about post-fucking cuddles or anything leading up to a potential round two, but when Austin stroked my pussy, I put a hand over his to stop the motion. “Is that why you did it?”
He didn’t look at me. His breath puffed hot on my shoulder and he kissed me. His lips pressed my skin. His fingertip settled on my clit and circled lightly. I’d had two orgasms and my body wasn’t ready for another, or so I thought. As his hand moved, tension stirred inside me.
“Is it?” I drew in a breath but kept my voice even. “Austin?”
“Well, shit, Paige. Yeah. Of course.” He sounded insulted.
I put my hand over his again, though what he was doing was starting to work. “Look at me.”
He did. I hadn’t noticed the shadows under his eyes before. Faintly blue, they made him look older. Well, he was. We both were.
“I thought you liked it rough, that’s all.”
“Did it look like I wasn’t enjoying myself?” I didn’t want to defend my orgasms to him. I didn’t want to think he’d done something for my sake that he hadn’t wanted to do for his own.
Pushing him off me, I got out of bed and gathered my clothes. I dialed the cab company and arranged for a ride home. Austin watched me without pulling up the sheets or making a move toward his own clothes. When I looked at him, his expression had gone inscrutable. That was as familiar as everything else had been, and I figured whatever glitch in his operating system had made him ask me those questions had been fixed.
“Why did you come over here?” he asked, loud in the quiet. “Really?”
I stepped into my panties and pulled them up, then zipped my skirt, too. “I came over here to do just what we just did.”
“Just to fuck me?”
“Yes, Austin,” I told him. “What else did you think I wanted?”
“Nothing.” He rolled to grab the remote from the nightstand and I discreetly ogled his ass and the sweet backs of his thighs—places I’d bite, if I had more time. “Forget I asked.”
“Are you getting pissy with me?” I straightened my shirt and ran my fingers through my hair to shake it into some semblance of order. “No, you are not. Are you? Seriously?”
“No.” Austin, his jaw set, kept his gaze on the television. He punched the buttons of the remote so fast I knew he couldn’t possibly be able to see more than a second or two of each program before moving on.
“Because I’ll tell you what, if you’re going to give me an attitude every time I come over here to fuck you, I’m not going to bother anymore.” I stepped into my shoes. “That cake is baked.”
Now he looked at me. “Huh?”
“That cake,” I said carefully, “is baked. Done. Over. Finished.”
“Iced?” One corner of his lips turned up, but only a little.
He was maybe the only person who’d ever really “gotten” me. It was why we fought so hard and fucked so good. He knew every button to push.
“Yeah. Iced.”
He shrugged, looking back at the television, but his mouth still quirked. “If you say so.”
“Austin.” I waited until he looked at me. “Don’t make me regret this, okay? You know what this is.”
He shrugged again, the brief glint of a smile fading. His finger stabbed the remote as he cycled through all bazillion cable stations. I thought about kissing him before I left. I even took a few steps toward the bed, but when he turned to look right at me, I stopped.
“I’ll let myself out. No, no, don’t bother getting out of bed,” I said, though he hadn’t done so much as shift. “I’ll do it.”
I was already out the door and into the hall and at the head of the stairs when he called after me.
“That’s not all it is!”
I stopped, my hand on the newel post of his stairs. There were half a dozen retorts, but none of them made it past my tongue. At the bottom, the smooth banister shoved a splinter into my palm and I muttered a curse as I plucked it free. That would teach me, I thought as I let myself out of his house and onto the street, where the cab was already waiting.
Chapter 05
Daylight teased the sky by the time I made it home. I paid the cabdriver and ignored the way he ogled my thighs when I stepped onto the curb. I didn’t want to be sorry I’d gone to bed with Austin even though I’d said I wouldn’t. The sex had been too good, as good as it can be only with someone who already knows you, but I’d started a new life, with a new job and a new apartment, in a new city. I wanted new habits, too, and Austin was definitely not one of those.
I wanted a man who’d gone to college. Who had a career, not a job. One who owned a car and paid bills on time and wore clothes that matched. A professional man, not one who smoked and drank and cheated, or one who’d run up the credit card and skipped out into the night without leaving a note. Not one who wrecked my car because he didn’t have one of his own.
I wanted a man, not a boy in a man-suit.
You’re unfair to me, Austin had accused me more than once. I’m not like those guys.
Those guys. The men my mother dated. No, he wasn’t like those guys. At least not mostly. But I’d always been waiting for him to turn into one. Maybe he was right and I’d been unfair, but he’d done his share of shitty things even when he knew they’d hurt me. Hell. I’d done the same.
My heels sounded very loud on the marble tile as I passed the front desk, empty at this hour. I’d occupied the elevator alone, dressed to kill, more times than I could count on both hands. Tonight, because I knew I looked ridden hard and put away wet, a hand shoved its way through the doors just before they closed, and I had to share it.
“Thanks,” said that man I’d seen before. “I’m too tired for the stairs.”
He slouched, eyes half lidded, in the corner opposite and just behind mine. His shoulders lifted with a sigh that became a yawn, prompting one from me I hid behind my hand. He looked at me with a half smile. Conscious of the fact I was sure my lipstick was smeared and my eyeliner smudged, I smiled back. We both turned to face the front, but I felt the weight of his gaze on me, could see him looking from the corner of my eye. Unlike before, this time he wasn’t too distracted to notice me. When I turned my face, just slightly, he was studiously watching the blinking white numbers showing the elevator’s progress.
I had to bite my lower lip against a smile. He was seriously eye-fucking me. Who doesn’t get off on being noticed?
It took a very long time, it seemed, to reach the first floor. He moved past me without touching me, but my skin prickled as though he had. He stepped out of the elevator and I let out the breath I’d been holding. I’d seen him twice now. Three times? It must have been the charm, because unlike all the others, this time he was the one who looked back.
“I missed you.”
I’m already diving into Austin’s arms when he says it. A week was too long to be away from him. His parents had taken him from me, stolen him to go to visit family for a funeral. At nineteen, he’s plenty old enough to stay by himself, but they’d insisted he go along to pay his respects. I think it’s more like they don’t want us fucking our way through every room in the house while they’re away, but I can’t blame them. They’d have been right. I wouldn’t have felt comfortable going along, even if they had invited me, but a week is an eternity in the summer when the only thing I have to look forward to is long hours with Austin’s mouth on mine.