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It’s hard to worry about my dad’s health when he’s not worried about it. But again, before I can respond, Cam adds on, “Not to talk about treatment. We need to discuss what’s going to happen after…”
His words trail off and his voice breaks. He wants to talk about what happens when our dad dies, and the way he is going—seems like it could be at any time.
“Sure,” I tell him softly. “I’ll email you my travel schedule and you just let me know when you want to get together. ”
We disconnect and I brood the entire way over to Sutton’s.
Chapter 20
Sutton
“Alex,” I practically grunt as he drives into me. “Hold up a minute. ”
He doesn’t hear me or he doesn’t take me seriously, because he pulls back and slams back in just as hard. The feeling is so deliciously pleasurable, my toes curl up and my fingers dig into his ass.
“Alex. Stop,” I practically plead.
I’m not sure if it’s the supplicating tone of my request, or if he is surfacing from the almost drugged state our passion seems to induce, but he lifts his head—which had been buried in my neck—and looks at me with glazed eyes etched in concern.
“Did I hurt you?”
“No,” I assure him and tilt my h*ps upward so that he knows I’m totally digging the way he’s handling me. But I want something a bit different. “I want on top. ”
Answering my flexing h*ps with a push back that causes me to groan, he arches an eyebrow up at me. “You want on top?”
“Yes,” I tell him with a grin. “I’m tired of you being in control all the time. ”
In a move so fast I feel like I’m on a roller coaster, Alex flips positions, falling to his back on the mattress while holding me in place. I swing around and come to rest on top of him, with his hardness still wedged deeply within me. The new angle causes tingles to race up my spine and my breath to catch.
Alex gives sexy a new name as he raises his hands up and plants them behind his head, grinning up at me. “Do your worst, Sutton. ”
“How about I do my best,” I purr, using my thigh muscles to rise up slowly. I pull up and just before he slips free, I slowly sink back down on him. The amused grin on his face slides off and his eyes flutter closed as he grits his teeth.
“Fuck, that feels good,” he says in an almost griping fashion.
Resting the palms of my hands on his rock-hard stomach for leverage, I rise up again slowly, and push back down with equal force. He rewards me with a groan and so I do it again.
And again.
And again.
I keep it slow as I watch his face register how pleasurable he is finding this.
“Go faster,” he begs me as his hands come out from behind his head and grasp on to my thighs. He gives a slight push as I move upward, seemingly helping me along. When I start to slide back down slowly, he tries to push me along but I resist, my thigh muscles quaking against the force he’s exerting.
When he is in as deep as he can go, his gaze pins me intensely. “Come on, Sutton. Quit playing around. ”
I smile at him and push his hands off my legs. “You want it harder?”
“God, yes. ”
“Faster?”
“Yes!”
“No,” I tell him emphatically and his eyes flare wide at my denial. “I’m in control now, so just lie back and leave me be. ”
Challenge burns within his blue eyes as he raises his head slightly from the pillow, and I can sense he is on the verge of flipping us back over so he can take control.
I give him a warning look and say, “Don’t even think about it. ”
The defiance reverberates off him but he doesn’t move a muscle, other than to lay his head back down and give me a tight smile. He doesn’t say a word but brings his hands back up to rest on my thighs. His touch is light and acquiescent, born more of a need to just touch me rather than to be in control, and that makes my heart squeeze in contentment.
When Alex picked me up for dinner tonight, I sensed that something was wrong. He was distracted, his mind definitely on something more than me or the delicious Peruvian food we were eating. I asked him twice if there was something wrong and he gave me an apologetic smile and assured me he was fine…just thinking about an upcoming game against a highly ranked opponent. I didn’t buy it for a second, but the second time he refused to give me any intel, I decided to drop it.
After dinner, Alex said he didn’t feel like seeing a movie, and frankly, neither did I. It had been five days since we were last together and when I wasn’t worried about his distraction during dinner, I was fantasizing about all of the wicked things he would do to me once we got in bed. I had never in my life thought about sex as much as I did with Alex. It made me feel shallow, at times, because I feared that perhaps I was enamored of Alex only because he was a god in between the sheets. But no…there were plenty of other things about Alex that I was enamored of.
I think about the kindness with which he treated Glenn, or how he pulled me into his arms earlier today when Cosmo got the better of me. I think of how he is enjoying the game of hockey after hating it so long and the patience with which he teaches me about it. The way he looks at me, the softness of his touch. The way he bribes Minnie with subtle flirting and mums so that he can squeeze into my schedule to see me. Yes, Alex Crossman is a self-proclaimed ass**le, and he’s warned me that he will hurt me.
But he hasn’t yet.
So far he has done nothing but make my blood race, my heart thump madly and my soul sigh with contentment.
The softness of the feelings I have right now for Alex demand that I continue the slow pace I’ve set while on top of him. We have always been “balls to the wall” when we’ve had sex—Alex’s characterization, not mine. We get so consumed with lust and sensation that we are always striving to go harder, faster, longer. Our movements are always frenzied and the talk filthy. It’s exciting but even more, it’s intensely intimate.
But right now, I want to see if we are still as combustible at a different speed.
Scraping my nails along the skin of his stomach, I ride Alex with long pulls against his cock, and every time I sink back down onto him, he gives me a groan of approval. His fingertips slightly dig into my skin but he doesn’t try to hurry me again. He capitulates, even closing his eyes so he can privately savor the sensations I’m providing.
I watch him carefully. I notice the pace of his breathing, the flex of his muscles, the sounds coming from those beautiful lips of his. It’s all a wonder to me…to have this time to savor the beauty of Alex. To be the one solely responsible for the orgasm that I’m going to give him.
The thought of bringing him to a slow completion turns me on greatly. I’m searching for release myself and I can tell Alex is getting closer by the way his muscles have stiffened along his jaw and neckline and the rawness of his breathing.
Tingles spark low in my belly as my own cl**ax starts to break free, and I have to make myself keep the pace slow. My own nature wants to propel me faster, because Alex and I are best when we are wildly out of control.
Yet this pace feels right too, and I want to prove that it will feel just as good when we come slowly…silently.
“Baby,” I whisper and Alex opens his eyes. They are dark, clouded with quiet passion and they take a moment to focus. “I want you to come hard for me. ”
He groans at my request and his eyes squeeze shut again. He gives me no warning as his hands reach under my ass and he pushes me upward so suddenly that I have to grasp onto his biceps to steady myself. Then he pulls me down hard—so hard that he hits something deeper than I’ve ever felt before and I let out a curse of pleasure.
Then Alex just holds me in place and flexes his h*ps upward, holding his breath as he starts to come. Watching the extreme release of pleasure on his face is my undoing and my orgasm breaks free. Throwing my head back, my heart is fille
d with immense tenderness over this experience. I swallow the cry that wants to release because I don’t want to drown out the other quiet sensations we are experiencing together right now.
A low moan from Alex starts to work loose and my breath releases in an explosive gasp, both of our bodies shuddering so very quietly in relief.
I don’t collapse forward onto Alex even though my body is thoroughly exhausted. Instead, I stay sitting up ramrod straight, his c**k still hard inside of me, and I watch him.
His chest rises up and down in short bursts and his pulse is hammering at the base of his throat. His eyes open slowly and he stares at me, almost blankly, for a moment. Then my heart drops a little when I see a touch of fear glaze over him. He shares it with me for just a second, so briefly that perhaps I imagined it, but then his hands grip my h*ps and he lifts me off of him, rolling me to the side so that I’m lying on the mattress. He rolls right over the top of me and I think it’s a move so he can settle back in between my legs to kiss me, but he keeps on rolling, right off the bed.
“I need to use the bathroom,” he mutters and doesn’t look back at me as he steps out of my bedroom and into the hallway.
It’s contagious…fear.
It takes root in my heart and then zips outward through my veins and arteries, until I’m completely suffused with it. While Alex and I have always been intense in our passion, there has always—always—been cuddling after, usually followed by quiet talk. He’s never just left me so suddenly, so coldly.
Clearly this experience was moving to him in a way that was different from the way it was moving to me. It was possibly too intimate for him, or maybe my ability to give him a good orgasm just plain sucks. Maybe I imagined the tenderness of this experience, and Alex didn’t appreciate it. Self-doubt overwhelms me and I can feel tears prick at my eyes.
Swinging my legs out of bed, I lurch upward and out. I root around for my clothes and slip my underwear on—backward and inside out, I think—but I don’t stop. The slickness of Alex’s se**n trickles down the inside of my thighs and the thought of it almost makes me want to cry in loss, because I do think I’m losing him. I hastily pull on my T-shirt and reach down for my jeans, when Alex steps back into the room.
“What are you doing?”
As I glance at him over my shoulder, he looks stunning in the blue light of the moon coming through my windows. He is all hard angles and rolling valleys of muscle. His nakedness, while beautiful, makes me feel uncomfortable for some reason.
I don’t answer but bend over once again for my jeans. Just as I grasp them, I feel him behind me, pulling at my shoulders until I straighten up. Then I’m wrapped up in his arms, the heat of his skin almost burning in nature.
“Why are you getting dressed?” he murmurs in my ear, and his sexy tone causes a ripple of longing to run through me.
“I just…I thought maybe you were heading home,” I tell him, although I have no clue why I was getting dressed. Clearly there was a need for escape, because the emptiness he left behind in the bed was freaking me out.
“Home?” he asks in confusion. “Why would I do that?”
I shrug my shoulders in response, completely unwilling to tell him all of my insecurities.
He’s not accepting my silence. Turning me around so that I face him, he wraps both of his large hands around my neck and props his thumbs under my chin. Then he tilts my head up so I have to look at him.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, worry evident in his tone and expression.
My fear tells me to keep my mouth shut, that any confession of my feelings will send him scurrying. But the part of me that is still wise to the world and has handled things a lot scarier than this urges me to be honest.
“You bolted out of bed pretty quickly,” I tell him in a firm voice, even though my stomach is tightening with unease.
“I had to use the bathroom,” he enunciates emphatically, as if he’s talking to a child that needs reassurance, even as a hint of guilt flashes in his eyes.