My heart ached after hearing about his heartbreaks. It ached for him and for the fallacy of eternal love. It . . . ached. My hand covered his still spread over my stomach. His hand twisted beneath mine to braid our fingers together.
“I’m sorry, Will. What a bunch of shit luck.”
“Life is full of shit luck. That’s why when you find that thing or person that isn’t every now and again, you grab on and don’t let go without putting up one hell of a fight.”
There was no indication in his tone that a message was hiding in his words, but I felt it. Or maybe I was only choosing to believe he was trying to say something else in that blanket philosophical statement.
“What about you? How many boyfriends have you had?” he asked.
Of course that question would make me shift. And squirm. And want to get up and avoid it . . . but I didn’t. If Will could bear his soul to me in five minutes without even breaking out a sweat, I could do it too. “By your definition of a boyfriend . . .” I bit my lip and forced myself to continue. “I guess I’ve had zero.” And the truth shall not set you free. Admitting that seemed more like the truth was throwing me in a six-by-six cell and welding the gate shut.
“So you’ve never been with a guy you could see yourself spending a future with?” There was no pity in Will’s voice, just curiosity.
I shook my head. “Never.”
“Okay, so then what about your definition of a boyfriend. Whatever that is. How many have you had?”
This answer wouldn’t be much better. “One. By my, and pretty much anyone else’s, definition of a boyfriend.”
“Really? You’ve only been with one guy? Ever?”
I glanced at where the door was waiting for me. Just waiting for me to pull it open, charge out, and run until I couldn’t run another step. Then I looked back at where I knew Will’s face was. “Ever. One guy. One boyfriend.” I shrugged. “That was enough to turn me off to the whole idea.” I supposed any girl who’d walked in on her boyfriend screwing another woman would feel the same way for a while. However, my “a while” seemed like it might end up a permanent thing.
“I’m sorry.” Will’s hand tightened around mine. “If you give me the name and address of this guy, I will happily—in fact, I’ll grin my way through the whole thing—go kick his ass for doing you wrong.”
That earned a smile from me. “I will take that into serious consideration, Will. Thanks.”
He chuckled. “Okay, enough with the exes talk. That’s out of the way now. Why don’t we talk about something more important and more fun?”
“I’m game. But what could be more fun than hashing out how the people from our pasts played rugby with our hearts?”
“Few things I can think of . . . besides food,” Will stated with a heavy dose of reverence. “What’s your favorite kind?”
If I hadn’t been so startled by the conversation change, I would have laughed. “What’s my favorite kind of what?”
Will groaned. “Food. What’s your favorite kind of food?”
This time, I did laugh. “What? Is this show-and-share day back in kindergarten?”
“Yes, considering we know next to nothing of the little things about one another, a game of basic Q&A will help us bridge that gap.”
Will Goods. Never a dull or predictable moment.
“Who says I want to bridge that gap?” Like so many of my replies to Will, this one was said in jest, but it hid a partial truth.
“Nobody. But I want to, thus why I asked the first question. If you don’t want to close that space between us, there’s an easy solution to that.”
So far, the way we’d been avoiding closing that space had been anything but an easy solution.
“And what is that easy solution?” I asked.
“Don’t answer,” he stated like it was the easiest thing in the world.
If it were so easy, I wouldn’t have been so conflicted I felt close to igniting. Will was right—if I didn’t want to get to know him, it was as simple as not answering his question. If I did want to get to know the man whose stomach I was currently using as a pillow, it was as simple as answering the question. So it was a simple thing . . . and yet it was so very difficult.
Getting to know the man hiding beneath that layer of skin I’d come close to memorizing with my hands was nothing to consider lightly, but if I was being honest—as I was trying to be with myself—what scared me wasn’t me getting to understand him, but Will getting to understand me.
I had barriers surrounding every inch of my perimeter for a reason. I’d built mile-high, mile-thick walls purposefully. If I allowed Will to take a good look at what was hiding beneath all of that, I could never take it back. If he saw who I really was—who was so very much the opposite of the strong, emotionless front I put on—if and when he walked away and left me alone, that cut would go deep. It would leave a permanent scar. And I’d been cut so many times that if I wore those scars on my skin instead of a few layers deeper, every square inch of me would be marred by them. I couldn’t add any more.
. . . Yet as Will continued to lie still and silent, something nudged me at the same time. It whispered that Will wouldn’t be one of those people. He wasn’t like my mom—knowing just what to say and do to ensure her cuts sliced to the bone. He wasn’t like the men my mom brought home—knowing how to use a palm or the backside of his hand to take a swing at a young girl’s face when she got an inch out of line. He wasn’t like my old classmates who’d thought calling me a whore and lobbing soupy mashed potatoes at the back of my head was a socially acceptable and standard procedure. He wasn’t like Blake who I’d found banging some other woman in my apartment. He wasn’t like me who was cold and callous and would pick up and bail at the first sign of someone getting too close.
I thought I hadn’t known much about Will Goods, other than how his body and mine seemed to work as one when they came together, and that he liked to work on cars and may have been a superhero in hiding based on the way he’d swooped in to save Paige. But as my mind continued to work out just how and what I knew of him, I realized I knew so much more.
I knew him so well that I seemed to know all of the important pieces without him having to say a word. Maybe that was the point—you don’t tell someone who you are. You show them. Will had been doing that this whole time, but I’d only just figured it out. I knew Will Goods. God, I knew him so well that there was only one way for me to respond to his question.
Now that I’d found my answer, I couldn’t give it to him fast enough. Twisting around, I crawled toward him until my knees ran into his side. One leg stayed where it was, the other swung over him, and before I’d lowered myself over Will completely, my mouth searched the black space for his. It was an easy search.
I’d taken him by surprise. That was apparent from the way his mouth stayed frozen the first few seconds mine moved against his. But I was relentless, and he didn’t take much convincing. His arms wound around me at the same time his lips melted beneath mine.
“What are you doing?” he breathed between our kisses.
I don’t know. I can’t remember. I don’t care. After a few other answers filtered through, I remembered what I was doing exactly.
“Answering your question,” I said in a rush before getting right back to what we’d been doing.
This was no time for reconsideration or deliberation or sedation . . . This was the time for action. Time to stop stifling the woman I was with the scared girl I’d let take the starring role for so long. I was done playing understudy in my own life.
If Will had been showing any semblance of restraint before my answer, I wouldn’t have guessed it, but the instant I answered him, I realized how wrong I’d been. The way he’d been touching and kissing me tonight and the two nights prior had all been controlled. Not quite methodical, but orchestrated . . . intentional. Tonight, all of that intention was gone. Instead of a caress running down my back, it was a powerful stroke. Instead of kissing me like it was a
game of give-and-take, his mouth worked against and within mine like it was a game of possession. Every touch was direct, every kiss purposeful. We were a long ways past the point of intention.
Will pivoted beneath me until I was the one on my back and his weight was holding me to the floor. His chest pinned me into position, and his hips applied just the right amount of friction in just the right place. He was taking control, and for once, I wasn’t internally cringing over the shift in power. For once, letting someone else take control over me felt like it was about intimacy, not about who was powerful and who was weak. I might have felt Will’s power, but I didn’t feel weak in the web of it. Instead, I felt just as powerful, almost as if his strength were channeling into me. He shared his with me, and I shared mine with him, and our reward was the way our bodies moved together as one. We’d become a symbiotic unit, and maybe that’s why I did what I did next.
My hands moved from his face, down his chest, to the hem of his jeans. When I tugged his shirt free, instead of stopping me by pinning my wrists behind me, he broke away from my mouth and leaned back just long enough for me to tug the shirt up and over his head. I threw it behind me before realizing that, in this dark, we might not find it until the morning. Will’s mouth didn’t fall back to mine like I was expecting it to. His hands grabbed my shirt and had it up and over my head just as quickly, if not more so, than I’d gotten his shirt off. Since my sisters and I’d been about to have a pajama party, I didn’t have on anything beneath my shirt. My sisters . . .
Shit. I’d almost forgotten. I reminded myself to be quiet, and if Will’s mouth hadn’t just crushed back into mine with renewed resolve at the same time his warm, hard chest pressed into mine, I would have reminded him too. But all reminders were lost as Will continued to show me the finer points of intimacy . . . And the harder ones.
Now that I’d lowered my walls or let Will inside them, or whatever the hell I’d managed, I couldn’t stop. I wouldn’t be able to, not until I’d had all of him. This time, my hands traveled lower until they found the cool metal of his zipper. After pulling the button free, I made quick work of his zipper and slipped my hand inside to free him. He groaned into my mouth when I stroked him. He shivered against me when I did it again.
As I continued to work my hand up and down him, I guided him closer. My body was so tight with want that I was five seconds away from either breaking or combusting. Neither sounded appealing when I knew how to prevent them both. When I’d brought him close enough I could feel his heat pulsing against mine, Will went rigid.
“What are you doing, Liv?” he panted. His hand gripped my hip like he was either trying to keep mine from joining his or was just getting into position to bring them together.
“I told you.” Breathing had become a chore. Talking was almost an impossible endeavor. “Answering your question.”
The room was still just as black as it’d been minutes ago, but I would have sworn that I’d seen a smile creep into place on Will’s face, which hovered a few inches above mine. “And please, keep answering away . . . but that’s not what I was referring to.” One of Will’s hands left me as he shifted a bit above me.
I felt something smooth and supple come to rest on my stomach as Will’s fingers searched inside it.
“When I asked you, ‘What are you doing, Liv?’ that was short for, ‘Hey, hold up two seconds and let me get suited up.’”
This time, I didn’t have to see or imagine his smile—I could hear it. My eyebrows lifted as what he’d just said processed. I’d been so lost in my want for him that I’d been about to go all the way with him before, as he called it, he was suited up. I considered myself a smart girl, but this instance pointed in a different direction. Good thing one of us had kept a scrap of the rational part of their brain working.
“You always keep a condom in your wallet?” I ran my hands down his sides as he shifted above me.
After he’d rolled it on, Will moved his wallet off of my stomach, and his warm chest moved back over mine. “Always wishful thinking.” He kissed the tip of my nose. “A guy wouldn’t want to find himself unprepared when the adventure of his life came knocking on his door. Or . . . when I came knocking on your door, I guess, since I was the one who showed up for this adventure. Not that I was expecting this adventure. Or any adventure, for that matter. I just wanted to check to make sure you were okay.”
He was rambling. That was a one-eighty from the overly confident man I knew on Friday nights. “You about done checking?”
He kissed my lips. Softly, carefully, almost like he was making sure I hadn’t disappeared from beneath him. “I think I’m ready to move on to checking something else out, if that answers your question. Unless that was a rhetorical question, in which case forget I even answered and let’s just pretend I answered your rhetorical question with a rhetorical answer.”
He was rambling. Again. “You about done?” I cupped his face and smiled at him. I knew he couldn’t see it, but the smile was less for him and more for me. It was about me acknowledging that this man made me happy in ways I’d never thought I could be. It was about not being afraid to show it. It was about so much more, but a smile was all I could express it with right now.
“No, Liv.” Will’s warm breath fogged against my neck, the shadow of conflict in his voice long gone. His only tone now was certainty. “I’m not anywhere close to being done with you.”
Chills tingled up my back, but before they could finish at the pinnacle of my neck, Will’s mouth had moved back to mine with new urgency. His hand shoved aside the material of my pajama shorts. I wasn’t wearing anything beneath them either.
When I felt his hips flex against mine, I sucked in a heavy breath against his mouth and dug my fingernails into his back. As he entered me, I cried out, my nails cutting deeper. When he moved inside me, my cries evolved from moans to sighs to whimpers. If it hadn’t been for his unyielding mouth formed around mine, I had no doubt the sounds would have woken the girls and sent them both into a panic. But his mouth stayed with mine—him swallowing my screams.
I’d been intimate with the lights off before, but never like that. Never in the kind of blackness that made it impossible to see anything, shadows included. I couldn’t see where his hands would move next or even predict it, making each touch that much more electric. It made my body that much more sensitive.
When I felt my climax building, I lifted my hips into his so he could move deeper. At almost the same time, his speed picked up. I guessed from the sounds he was making and the way his every muscle had burst to the surface, he was reaching his too. I tried to hold off for a while longer. I couldn’t be the one woman in history to climax before a twenty-something male . . . but I’d held back enough for two lifetimes. I was done holding back.
“Liv . . . I can’t,” Will panted as his forehead dropped to my cheek. It was hot and wet with his sweat. “I’m sorry . . . I can’t wait—”
My orgasm was so close that I felt the quickening in my stomach before it moved lower. I moaned, startling us both. It was especially loud without his mouth covering mine. “Will . . .” My eyes closed as my entire body stiffened. “Come with me. Do this . . . with me.” As another moan tried to escape, I bit my lip hard and kept it mostly contained.
Will’s pace slowed. “I’ll try.”
When my hands lowered from his back to his backside, I pressed him until he could go no deeper. This time, we both let out barely-muffled moans.
“When?” he panted, sounding like the pain of holding off was truly excruciating.
When he slid back out and I thrust him back deep inside, I felt it. “Now. I’m . . . there . . . with you.”
“Damn.” Will’s pace picked up again, moving as deep as he’d just been each time. “Those are beautiful words.” His teeth grazed my neck and that, combined with his words, combined with the whole past couple of months of desire and heat and passion were the final tipping point. I tightened around him everywhere I could, and since his
mouth was just out of reach, I lowered mine to his neck. I kissed and tasted and nipped and sucked at it like I’d just done with his lips. It muffled my cries as my orgasm ripped up and through my body, and at the same time, it gave me the pleasure of returning the possession favor.
Will groaned a curse before moving inside me with new intention. He was able to keep his orgasm quieter than I was, but that was only because he’d drilled his face into the pillow my head was on and muffled his cries into it. His grunts and groans vibrated the pillow as his hips rocked into me several times. Then, instead of collapsing on me in a spent, sated heap, he kept himself braced, still hard inside me, and rotated his head slowly toward mine.
“I think I might love you, Liv Bennett.” His voice was rough, breathless. “No, that’s a lie. I know I love you, Liv Bennett.”
If I hadn’t been swimming in a post-orgasm fog and utterly and deliriously happy, his words would have threatened to undo me. I would have raised every wall I’d ever built, double-time and twice as high. Instead, I let myself smile again.
“It was the mind-blowing sex, wasn’t it?” I teased, skimming my fingers through his damp, disheveled hair.
“The sex only turned me into a fool enough to say it out loud.” He shifted inside me just enough to make what I’d felt just fall apart, come back together for an encore. “But I’ve known it for a while now.”
“Are you usually this talkative when you’re buried deep inside a woman?” My body was already firing back to life, and I wasn’t going to hold myself back. I was done with that. For just right now, or tonight, or the rest of my life, I wasn’t sure, but I wouldn’t let the fear of closing back up inside myself keep me from enjoying being open and free.