“Okay, Mum. I love you.”
“I love you too, dear.”
She lowered the phone and sighed. “I’m going to need a sharp knife.”
He raised a brow. “I take it you don’t like pink?”
“I don’t like people messing with my stuff. I’ll castrate every one of them.”
Breathing in a slow breath, he tried for a lighter subject. “Do you think your mum’s upset you’re not coming until Wednesday?”
“Maybe. She understands.”
“So…helping a professor?”
She laughed. “What was I supposed to say?”
“No, that works. As a matter of fact I have something you could help me with right now.”
She tossed the phone on the couch and crawled toward him. “Is that so?”
“Yes. Big problem.”
“Mmm, how big?”
“Huge.”
She climbed on top of him and pressed him to his back. “I’m intrigued.”
He found her nipple and pinched the tip. She gasped and her eyes softened. “I love how responsive you are to my touch. I could spend days naked with you and never once get bored.”
“Well, we have days now.”
“Thank God.” He kissed her.
* * * *
There was no morning. Every minute blended together in passionate touches, secret smiles, and stolen caresses. Their time together seemed a gift and neither of them was anxious to leave their safe little haven.
Clothes were useless. If she covered herself, he stripped her. They couldn’t go more than an hour or two without finding themselves tangled into one. He made love to her in every room of the house and each time it amazed him how perfectly they fit.
By Monday, they were exhausted. They slept wherever their bodies fell and when they woke they ate, snuggled, and made love some more. Nothing existed aside from them.
He knew the world was going on around them, but for the first time in his life he didn’t care about the news or friends or even his work. Everything stopped so that he could hide away with her.
He’d tried to pull her into the light and she somehow managed to tempt him into her cave. It wouldn’t always be like this. Once classes started up again they’d be forced to keep their distance until they managed to find stolen moments to be as they wanted. What they had now was an illusion of the real thing, but he desperately wanted to believe it could always be this great.
He sat up in bed as Sheilagh sauntered in carrying a bowl of cherries. “You have no food.”
“You sound like my son.”
“I found a jar of cherries.”
She placed them on his stomach and the cool glass made him jump. She straddled his hips and fed him one. His lips closed over her fingers as he sucked down the berry and all its juice.
Reaching into the bowl, he fished out a cherry and held it to her lips. As she bit at it he pulled it away. She laughed and he teased her again, her soft mouth chasing after the offering. His fingers dragged the cherry over the slope of her breast, leaving a trail of pink in its path. Leaning forward, he licked over the juice and pulled the tight tip of her nipple into his mouth.
Cherries pushed aside, he flipped her to her back and tasted skin. Her hair formed a cloud over the rumpled bedding as her arms stretched into the pillows. His mouth worked down her belly and she moaned.
He licked at her slit, loving her taste, and pressed her thighs wide. She was such a good girl, opening for him. His body shivered at the unique dynamic they seemed to share. His pride reveled in the way she surrendered to his touch. He ate at her until she was crying out. Every climax she had was stunning.
“I want to do that to you,” she breathed.
He glanced at her and smiled. Moving to his back he folded his arms behind his head. She crawled over his knees and licked his cock. Breath sucked into his lungs as she took him deep to the back of her throat.
His fingers gathered her hair as she pumped her mouth over his engorged flesh. His hips lifted, meeting each motion with a thrust. His body tightened and she cupped his sack. He groaned at her gentle touch.
“Sheilagh.” He needed more of her. He released her hair and nudged her round bottom over his chest. “Come here.” Her mouth never left his cock as he rotated her body. His hands guided her thighs over his shoulders, her breath still teasing his cock.
Leaning up, he licked her sex some more. She moaned over his cock. It was glorious. His fingers dug into the soft flesh of her ass as he ate her. She sucked him harder the more excited she got. His thumb teased at the small rosette of her ass and he pressed the tip inside.
She made a high-pitched sound in the back of her throat that vibrated up his spine. “You like that?” he asked, kissing her swollen folds.
She moaned and he continued to probe her with his thumb. His free hand reached for her breasts dangling over his stomach. He cupped and plucked at her there.
The scruff of his chin scraped over her clit and she seemed to like that, too. Releasing her breast, he spread her cheeks and licked her from front to back. He eased a finger deep in her sex and began fingering her hard, relentlessly. Adding another, and finally fitting three into her tight sheath, he drove his wrist forward with quick, hard thrusts.
She cried out and doubled the speed at which she sucked him. He leaned in and tongued her little rosette. She deep throated him and shocked him by pressing into the sensitive span of muscle just beneath his sack. His climax rushed out of him, filling her mouth and she never stopped.
His body locked and he shouted her name. When he collapsed back to the pillows, she softly licked over his length. Never before in his life had he shared such an intense sexual experience with another.
Her swollen mouth kissed up his stomach, causing his muscles to jolt and twitch. She shifted off of him and settled into the curve of his arm, sighing. He kissed her hair and reached for the blankets.
They had two days left like this. Two days and then she’d leave for four and when she came back everything would be different.
Chapter Seven
I could watch him sleep for hours. He’s so beautiful, he should have been a statue carved by some artist. I haven’t slept in well over twenty-four hours, which is odd. I’m afraid if I sleep I’ll wake up and discover it’s all been a dream. I know it will eventually end, but right now it’s real and I’m in it with no desire to be anywhere else.
Wednesday was nerve wracking. She didn’t want to go home, yet she did. Over the past five days she’d discovered something about herself. She could actually be herself and let down her guard and when she did…it was okay. Everything was fine. Alec accepted her for who she was and that satisfied her needs in a way she’d never experienced before.
Luckily, she had her suitcase with her when she’d arrived on Friday. She’d been living out of it ever since. Currently, she was in Alec’s basement waiting for the washer to finish while he slept upstairs in bed.
“Sheilagh?”
Okay, maybe he wasn’t sleeping. “I’m down here.”
He came down the stairs and wrapped his arms around her. “I love that you traipse around my house without a stitch of clothing on.” He kissed her shoulder. “If you’ve been naked all this time, what are you washing?”
“My delicates.”
His hand cupped her breast as his lips dragged over her shoulder. Tipping her head back, she leaned into him. “Can I have you like this?” he whispered, trailing his hand down her belly to her sex.
“You can have me however you want.”
He eased her shoulders forward. “I want you like this.”
The width of his cock slid over her sex. The cool press of the washer on her breasts and belly made her shiver. She widened her stance and he thrust into her, hard and fast.
His strong hands gripped her hips, pulling her into him as he plunged deep. He possessed her. Her body was no longer solely hers. Alec never demanded too much. He always had a polite way of asking, but the more
time they spent together the more she liked when he simply took as if he needed to have her in order to take his next breath.
His hips smacked into hers and she keened with each thrust. He didn’t fuck her like other men had. Every time he touched her he removed another sad memory. He fucked her like a man taking possession of a woman. He adored her body and laughed at her jokes. He understood her and that was a first—a scary first. Being so understood left little room to hide.
His fingers fit between her thighs where their bodies connected. Her clit was pinched tight as he pounded into her. He rubbed the little bud and she felt her pleasure climb. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes! Oh, Alec!”
His hand gripped her breast and cupped her forcefully. He moaned and she felt him come inside of her. The warm weight of his cheek, damp with perspiration, pressed into the blade of her shoulder as his hand fell away.
“Don’t go.”
His whisper was so low she might have imagined it. She shifted and he withdrew from her sex. The wash cycle had finished and the room was quiet. She twisted to see his face.
He looked so sad.
“I’m coming back in a couple days.” She cupped his jaw and he kissed her palm.
Looking down, he whispered, “I’ll miss you.”
“You could come with me.”
He stilled, his eyes searching her face. “What about—”
“Nobody knows who you are there. You’re just Alec. We won’t have to hide. You could…you could meet my family. If you want to.”
“How long do I have to pack?”
She smiled. Something light and wonderful filled her chest. “I’ll help you.”
* * * *
Alec insisted they take his car. It was warm and the roads wouldn’t be a problem so Sheilagh agreed.
She hadn’t told the others she was bringing him with her. No one, aside from Kelly, knew he existed. They’d been on the road for almost two hours and his nifty GPS system was making her job as co-pilot easy.
“How often do you cry?”
She faced him, totally taken off guard by the random question. “What?”
“How often do you cry?”
“I don’t cry. Not really.”
“Don’t lie to me, Sheilagh. It’s transparent.”
She recalled the other night when they’d first made love. She cried then and she probably shouldn’t have let herself be so open. “I don’t know. I cry when I watch sad movies.”
His lips tightened. He switched lanes and they drove in silence for a mile. “Will you talk to me about it eventually?”
She frowned. “Talk to you about what, Alec?”
“Everything you keep inside.”
“Why are you asking me this?”
“Because.”
“Because? That’s your explanation? Come on, Alec, level with me.”
“If we can ask ourselves questions we can better understand who we are. If we aren’t happy with our life’s course, we can choose to think differently and change it.”
“What makes you think I’m not happy?”
“Because when I watch you I see sadness. It isn’t always there. I’m sure you have most of the world fooled. But I’ve seen it. I’ve seen you at your most vulnerable and you’ve said things that tell me I’m right.”
She couldn’t deny it. Unless the world was moving a million miles an hour and she was laughing along with the ride, she wasn’t okay. When life lulled and time settled as if catching its breath, she sometimes became anxious or scared. Sometimes that anxiety turned over and rolled away until there was nothing left. The nothingness was the worst.
She liked adrenaline. She liked booze. So long as her heart was racing the nothingness stayed away. Then there were days she couldn’t keep it out and she felt dead inside, but forced to live through the lifelessness.
That was how she’d started doing stupid things. If she was occupied with a man, she wasn’t thinking. Her mind was alert and moving, but when that man left, everything crashed back to nothing again. But with the absence of her self-respect it was twice as lonely.
Sometimes she wondered how long the hurt would last. She worried she’d become addicted to sadness, yet she hated it all the same. For reasons she still couldn’t decipher, losing the first love of her life to her brother seemed to cement her into a place she desperately wanted to leave. It didn’t seem enough to change her so dramatically, yet she was quite different from the girl she once was. That was why she acted as if she didn’t have a care in the world. If she didn’t like the woman she’d become, surely no one else would.
However, Alec saw glimpses of the real her and seemed to like her. She didn’t have that crash back to nothingness with him. Of course, he hadn’t left her yet. If he eventually left…she didn’t want to think about what that would feel like.
She turned her palm up and he, seeing the unspoken invitation, settled his hand in hers. “Thank you.”
“For?”
“You make me happy.”
“I want to talk about the philosophy.”
She groaned. “Oh, come on!”
“Please.”
Huffing and pulling her hand back to cross over her chest, she sighed. “What?”
“Epictetus, a Greek philosopher, believed trying to govern things we have no control over was the cause of emotional turmoil. What we can control is the way we think. If we stop worrying about things we can’t control, like other’s opinions of us, we can find peace.”
“Do you think I care what others think of me?”
“Yes.”
She jerked her gaze to his and gave him a look of disbelief. “Well, I don’t.”
“Why are you here?”
“In the car?”
“No, at Princeton.”
“Because I chose to be.”
“Chose? Or because you didn’t want your father to think less of you when he found out you were going to take your clothes off on a stage?”
“You’re being an asshole.”
“That’s not my intention. I’m only asking you a question.”
“Fine. But that’s my dad. Most girls don’t want their dad to be ashamed of them.”
“I understand. I also know you’re quite stoic. You can endure a certain amount of hardship without showing your feelings. But I worry what years of holding all the pain in is doing to you.”
She didn’t want to talk about this anymore. “I’m done talking about this.”
“I want to teach you Stoic Philosophy. I think you’d benefit from it.”
They were silent for a while. Perhaps he realized she’d reached her limit of psychobabble bullshit. She didn’t like being put under a microscope. Suddenly claustrophobic, she wanted to get out of the car.
“Can we stop? I need to stretch my legs.”
“Sure. There’s a rest stop in about ten miles—”
“Can you just pull over?”
He turned on his signal and eased off the road. “Are you okay?”
“No. I need to get out of this car.” Her hand pulled at the handle, but it wouldn’t open. She tried to unlock it, but that was the window button. “How do you open the fucking door?”
The locks disengaged and she opened the door, yanking off her seat belt. She paced along the shoulder of the road.
* * * *
Alec cursed as the door slammed in his face. He waited for the upcoming traffic to pass and then climbed out of the car. Sheilagh paced along the side of the road, her face tight with tension and her mouth whispering words he couldn’t hear.
“Sheilagh?”
She ignored him.
“Sheilagh.”
She continued to pace. He stepped closer. “Sheilagh.”
“I don’t want to talk anymore!”
He caught her in his arms and she burst into tears. Wrapping his arms around her tight, he held her and she cried and pounded weakly on his chest. “I’m sorry,” he said, kissing her hair. “I’m sorry.”
“Why do yo
u get to see things in me no one else does? You’re the one person I don’t want to see that stuff.” She sniffled.
He couldn’t let her go. “Because I want to know the real you. I don’t care what you give the rest of the world. I want the real you.”
“Why though? It isn’t pretty.”
“It’s you.”
She seemed to sag against him. His hand ran up and down her back, soothing her the only way he knew how in that moment.
They stood that way for several minutes and she slowly started to calm. “Do you want to keep going or do you want to stay here a while longer?”
“I don’t know what I want.”
He sighed and held her. Cars passed and they simply stood there for the better part of twenty minutes. When she seemed ready, she stepped away and got back in the car.
Alec returned to the driver’s side and hesitated. “If you’ve changed your mind, I can drop you off at your parents’ and go to a hotel.”
Her eyes, still wet from tears, turned on him. “Why?”
“I didn’t mean to upset you. We’re more than halfway there. If you’d rather I not be with you—”
“I want you with me.”
“Are you sure?”
She nodded and twisted in her seat. “All of this, the ugly stuff, it’s me, Alec, not you.”
“It’s not ugly, Sheilagh. It’s human. I just want to help you get it out, whatever it is.”
She kissed his knuckles. “Thank you for being so patient with me.”
His fingers traced her jaw. “Sadness hurts. You aren’t the only person struggling with it.”
“If I can ignore it, I don’t struggle.”
“Is that what you want? To go on pretending it doesn’t exist, that this is as good as it gets?”
“Isn’t it?”
He smiled sadly. “No, sweetheart. There is so much more to life once we stop fearing the things we can’t control.”
“I don’t know why I’m like this. I’m generally a happy person.”
“We’ll figure it out when you’re ready. The fact that you want to be happy is a good place to start.”