My fingers dip between my spread legs and my breath catches.
“Abby.” His voice sounds strangled. “I can hear your breathing. Are you touching yourself?”
“Y-yes.”
“Tell me, baby.”
“I’m… wet.” So wet I can feel it leaking out of me. “Swollen and sensitive.” All of me is aching. For him.
“Christ, that sounds so nice. I’m rock hard. All I can think about is being inside you, hearing those little noises you make as you get close.”
My fingers are sliding around the spread of my sex and I’m coated in slick arousal. “Are you touching yourself?” I think about how he would look with his big hand wrapped around that steely shaft.
“Do you want me to?”
“Yesss.”
His breath chokes out and I hear rustling in the background. “I’m sitting on the couch in my office, my fly’s down and I’ve got my cock in my fist. I’m thinking about you straddling me, that purple dress up above your hips, your panties pulled to the side and your pretty pink pussy wet and tight and waiting… right there above me.”
“Oh my God, Hank.” My inner walls clench in vain.
“Do you want me inside you, baby?”
“So much.”
“Put your finger at your opening and slide it inside. Slow. Just a little at a time.”
I do what he says, moaning at the first hint of penetration, knowing I need more.
“Now sink deep, baby, then when you slide back out, I want you to paint a little circle around your clit for me before you do it again.”
“Mmm.” It feels so good, so different from when I’ve touched myself before. So much more intense. “Tell me, Hank.”
“I’m thinking about how wet you are right now, about your finger coated in your cream. About how bad I want to suck on it.” God, I can practically feel his lips around my fingers. “Taste you wanting me.”
“I want you.” My voice is shaky, weak.
“Baby, my cock is so hot in my hand right now. I’m moving up and down… I want it tighter… Add another finger.”
On the next thrust, I push another finger inside with the first, feeling my inner walls clamping around them. “It’s tight, Hank… feels so good.”
“Jesus, baby, I can hear you whimpering. Are you close?”
“Yes. You?”
“So close.” I can hear the strain in his voice, the hitch in his breath. I imagine him pumping over his shaft and it pushes me all the closer.
“Set the phone down next to your head. And play with your nipples.”
I reach into the front of my dress and begin to tease one bunched tip and then the other. A hard spasm rips through my center. “Hank!”
“Three fingers…”
“It’s so tight.”
“As deep as you can go…”
So good. “I-I’m so close.”
“Think about me pushing inside… stretching you… filling you…”
The pressure is building and building.
“Fucking you so hard.”
“Hank!” I cry out, tumbling over the edge and crashing into wave after wave of pleasure.
“Baby, I’m about to come… Christ… Abby, I—” He cuts off with a deep groan, and I nearly come again.
Together we catch our breaths and then Hank is back. “You okay?”
The perspiration on my skin is cooling, and I’m still reveling in the aftershocks of my orgasm.
“I’m so good,” I sigh, awed that the tension I’d been accumulating this past two weeks seems to be gone. “I can’t believe we did that.”
His laugh is dangerously sexy. “I can’t believe we had to. One of these days, sweetheart, you’re going to have to admit you’ve already crossed the line. And I’m not talking about a physical one.”
But that’s the thing. I can’t admit it. I can’t let myself give in to this man. Not the way he wants.
ABBY
MOST WEEKENDS, I enjoy the hours I spend with my older students who struggle with reading. It’s something I look forward to. These kids come in because they want to learn, and watching their confidence grow from week to week and month to month gives me a satisfaction like no other. But today all I can think about is Hank. What happened Thursday. How I avoided his call last night. And how there’s no avoiding him today.
Except that isn’t exactly true.
My students are gone. I’ve already straightened my classroom. And now I’ve been running this dingy dried-up Clorox wipe over the same spot for fifteen minutes. Winter break starts today, and if I left now, I could conceivably avoid seeing Hank for another two weeks. But I haven’t.
I don’t like the way I feel when I realize that, yes, I am waiting for him. I don’t like how it feels to know that despite my best efforts, I’ve started pinning my hopes on a man so capable of breaking my heart… whether he means to or not.
I know better. But here I am… waiting to see what line he’ll cross next.
The floor creaks behind me and then he’s pulling my hair off one shoulder, twisting it loosely so my scalp tingles at the delicious sensation I remember from so long ago. My breath catches and I turn to face him.
“Hank.”
He’s dressed in jeans and a fitted Henley that showcases the breadth of his shoulders and definition of his pecs, but it’s his eyes I get tangled up in. The way he’s watching me, it’s like he’s seeing everything we’ve ever been to each other as he looks at me.
His hand slides down my shoulders, to my hip, and then to that spot low on my back. He pulls me closer.
“Today I’m breaking the rules for real, Abby.”
My hands are trembling, my skin hot as I nod.
Eyes locked with mine, he kisses me.
It’s a soft brush of his mouth against mine, barely more than a breath, and yet that scant contact is enough to ignite every nerve in my body. Hank pulls back to look in my eyes. The corner of his mouth tips up and that gentle pressure at the small of my back increases as his hand slides higher up my spine, pulling us into closer contact. His mouth dips to mine again and this time he kisses me the way he’s been looking at me for weeks. He kisses me the way he’s been talking to me each night.
He kisses me with purpose.
And it’s enough to break down the last of those crumbling walls within me. I open beneath him with a gasp, and then moan as he slips his tongue past my lips.
I kiss him back. Cling to him. Fan my shaking fingers over his jaw, those sexy glasses, and into the overlong, silky mess of his hair.
That hair.
Our tongues twine and taste, one leading gently before following the other. Our breath mingles hot and then hotter between us. My back meets the filing cabinet behind me, and desire churns low in my belly, spilling need through me as I whimper.
This. We can have this.
Hank groans against my mouth, his fingers tightening at my hips once before he pulls back.
The distance between us is torture. My breasts ache for the pressure of his hard muscles. My mind begs for more of the kiss I can’t think past.
He looks at me beneath the fall of his hair, his breath coming in harsh pants.
I wait for the moment when he grabs me back, crushes me beneath his kiss and—
“Have dinner with me, Abby. Tonight. A date.”
When he told me he was going to break the rules, I thought he meant the kiss. But this is the line he wants to cross. The one I’ve been defending more fiercely than all the others.
The one I’m too scared to let slide.
“Hank, I-I can’t.”
Letting out a humorless laugh, he adjusts his glasses. “Can’t.”
He reaches for me, cupping the side of my face in one warm palm before brushing my mouth with his thumb. Quieting me. He doesn’t want another excuse and I don’t want to give him one. Almost as much as I don’t want to watch him walk out of my classroom.
But that’s what he’s doing.
He s
tops at my door, gripping the frame with white knuckles, and I wonder whether it’s because he’s trying to make himself go through or make himself wait. Either one tears at my heart.
Why can’t I just tell him to stop? Tell him I want to go with him to dinner. I want to go with him anywhere. Everywhere.
The words are poised on the tip of my tongue, pushing at the walls of my heart, but they don’t come.
Hank looks back over his shoulder, not quite meeting my eyes. “Have a good weekend, Abby.”
I take a step toward him, my hands clutched in front of me like they’re tied, even though we both know they are not.
“Will I talk to you tonight?” I ask, suddenly sick with the worry that I won’t.
“Sure.”
And then he’s gone.
HANK
JUST KEEP WALKING. It shouldn’t be this hard. I’ve been doing it for twenty-eight years. But damn, putting one foot in front of the other as I walk the wrong direction down Abby’s hall is the hardest thing I’ve done in forever.
Through sheer force of will, I make it halfway down the hall, but come up short when I hit the open door with the light on the left.
No one’s supposed to be here.
Even the custodians leave by noon.
Abby and I are the only ones with programs running past two on Saturday. So what the hell is Wilson doing parked at his desk, staring down at the veneer top like there’s more there than empty space.
“Wilson?”
He doesn’t turn, but the muscle in his jaw tics once, twice. “So that’s what all this is about? The robotics program. The Smart Boards. It’s about her.”
My muscles go rigid. “You came to see Abby.”
“Things have been a little weird between us for a few weeks. I was going to see if she wanted to grab a burger or hit a movie. Not a date.”
He turns his head and glares at me. My respect for this guy triples, because not a whole hell of a lot of people have the sac to do that. Maybe it’s because he considers this his turf, but more likely it’s some sense of having the moral high ground here. And maybe he does. I’m not even sure.
“If it makes you feel any better, she won’t let me take her to dinner either.”
“Makes me feel better about her. You, not so much.”
Yeah, he’s still pissed about the way I worked him into coming clean about his feelings for Abby. Maybe it’s time I come clean too.
“I want her back.”
He nods. “Pretty used to getting what you want these days, I’m guessing.”
“That’s a fair assessment.” And then, so there’s no misunderstanding between us, I add, “I’m a decisive guy who’s made a career out of making my goals a reality. And the way I do it is simple. I set my mind on something and then I work fucking hard to make it happen. I don’t let fear of failure hold me back. Ever. And when I want something a lot and I can’t see my way to finding it… I don’t quit, Wilson. I back up and find another way to get there. So yeah, I’m pretty used to getting what I want.”
What I’m not telling him is that I’m fully aware it doesn’t always work that way when you’re talking about a who and not a what.
I’ve had more than my share of not getting what I want with Abby. Those are the failures that burn the worst.
Jaw shifting to the side, he cuts me a cool look. “Why won’t she go to dinner with you?”
Because she thinks she’s protecting her heart.
Because I’m the guy who leaves and she’s the girl who won’t wait.
Because she’s never gotten over her mother—her birth mother—dying before she could get Abby back.
But I don’t tell him any of that. “You’ll have to ask her that yourself.”
ABBY
WATCHING HANK WALK away today did something to me I can’t get past. Like there was more riding on that moment than I wanted to accept and now I’ve missed my chance.
I press my hand into my stomach, hating the hollowed-out feeling when I think about the way he looked at me before he left… Disappointed. Hurt. Resigned.
Hank has looked at me like that once before and, because of the choices I made, it was more than ten years before I saw him again. I can’t lose him like that. It’s what I’ve been hoping to avoid all this time.
Why can’t we just be friends?
But I know the answer. Because friends don’t feel this way about each other.
They don’t have this kind of sway over each other.
I feel lost.
The emptiness of my apartment is oppressive. The recipe for one pinned to my fridge mocks me. It’s too early for Hank, but I keep expecting him to call. Show up in my apartment. Text. Pop up in hologram form in my bedroom. I tell myself I’m relieved he hasn’t, but just like Hank said, I’m a liar.
Only I don’t want to be.
It’s time to stop lying to myself about what’s going on with this man. About what I think I can keep and what I ought to avoid.
I need someone to talk to, and for this, it can’t be Hank.
I cross the hall and knock on Helen’s door, then jump a little when it flies open and a slightly flushed Helen ushers me quickly inside.
Her sprayed platinum blonde hair is pushed back with a terrycloth headband and she’s wearing a white long-sleeve leotard with faded red lightning-bolt stripes across her heaving bosom, a pair of snug red shorts and matching leg warmers.
“You’re working out. I can come back.”
“Don’t be silly.” She waves me deeper into her apartment. “I’ll finish while you’re here. Just my Kegels left.”
I pull up short, choking on the air I just gulped. Helen hustles back to her couch and uses the remote to pause her show. NCIS, Helen’s favorite and one I’ve watched with her enough to know that it’s Gibbs’s face filling the screen. She sighs wistfully before turning her attention back to me.
Patting the floral cushion beside her, she clucks.
“Dear, what’s got that troubled look on your face? Not your Hank, I hope. I like him so much better than those other boys you’ve dated.” She looks back to the television and withdraws a crumpled tissue from her sleeve, dabs her brow and returns it.
Oh God. She’s working up a sweat.
I shift uncomfortably, glancing at the door and wondering what excuse it would take to get a pass out of it.
Helen settles back into her cushions. “There. Finished my set.”
I nod, lips pinched together.
Helen looks like she’s about to give me another lecture about the benefits of strengthening my pelvic floor, so telling her about Hank is definitely the lesser evil.
“He hasn’t done anything wrong. Promise.”
She nods. “And that’s the problem? It would be easier if he did. So you’d have a reason to walk away?”
Maybe.
“He kissed me this afternoon.”
Her neat, penciled brows push high, crinkling her powdered forehead. “Tell me it was against the blackboard,” she demands breathlessly. “Was he all hot and bossy?”
“I think we… umm… might have ended up against the file cabinet. And it was— Helen, it was amazing. I didn’t want it to stop.”
She looks as confused as I feel. “So why did you?”
I shake my head, and she gasps, rhinestone-tipped nails covering the tight circle of her mouth.
“He stopped the kiss?”
Then she’s gathering me into her ample chest, patting my back a little less gently than I think she means to.
“He asked me to dinner again, and—I just couldn’t say yes. If he’d tried to get me into his car or even back to my apartment, I would have been the one tugging him down the hall to get there fast enough. But he wasn’t looking for sex. Or at least, it wasn’t all he wanted.”
“Abby, isn’t it time to admit that’s not all you want either?”
It’s not a question of what I want.
“You do realize you’ve been dating Hank Wagner for
weeks, don’t you?”
This time it’s my brows shooting high. Helen gives me a disappointed look.
“What happened last week when we were in the middle of Magic Mike? Only seventeen minutes left. Channing was doing that sort of fluid thing with his hips and…?”
I know where she’s going with this. “I turned the movie off.”
“Because it was 8:55p.m. and you were expecting a phone call. Abigail, you were practically breathless, your cheeks pink, eyes bright.”
“But Helen,” I start, only she’s already shaking her head at me.
“And the other night, when I passed you flying down the hall so fast you nearly lost the entire bag of groceries. What were you rushing for?”
“I wanted to get home before he called.”
“He calls you on that fancy phone he gave you. You could have talked to him in the grocery store or on the ride home. But you didn’t want to, did you?”
“No,” I answer, my voice small.
“Why not?”
“Because I like to talk to him when we’re alone.” When I’m in my bed, stretched out and relaxed so I can concentrate on his voice in my ear.
“Because you have a standing date for that man to tuck you in every night.”
“No.” Then because I can’t stand the way she’s looking at me, like she’s disappointed… “Maybe. But Helen, that’s the whole problem. I’ve already let myself get in too deep with him.”
What am I going to do when he leaves again? How am I going to live with losing him?
She tsks. “Why in the world would you say that?”
“Hank’s life is… complicated. He’s always two steps ahead of the rest of the world. Always moving on to the next big thing before the rest of us have even caught up to the last. He’s always leaving. If it isn’t for some two-day trip, it’s for two months or two years so he can see development through on whatever new product he’s going all in on. And I spent too many years being the girl left waiting.” I swore to myself that I’d never do it again. “I can’t do it with him.”
“I know growing up the way you did was hard.” Helen’s eyes are sympathetic. “No one walks away from a life like that without scars. But you can’t let what happened to you as a girl keep you from having the life you deserve as a woman. You say you don’t want to wait, but Abigail, from where I’m sitting, it looks like you’ve been waiting since you told that boy goodbye.”