She felt another climax building, and allowed it to crash over her, this one slightly less intense than the one that had come before. Her nails scored his back. Her mouth tore from his, and her teeth found his shoulder.
Neither of them would leave this encounter unmarked.
After a near silent onslaught of her body, he moaned, a soft, helpless sound. She had heard it before. And she knew what it meant.
A word followed. This time it wasn’t a curse word.
It was her name, “Vicki.”
Another, quieter, moan.
And he came.
He buried his face in her neck and unraveled in her arms.
Vicki clung to Ty, holding him close as the shudders wracking his body decreased in frequency and intensity. Until he was quiet and heavy in her arms. Her hands did what they had been forbidden to do earlier. They touched, and stroked, and learned. Feeling the smooth, tensile strength of his perfect body beneath her eager fingertips. He was a feast for all the senses.
He dozed, but not for long. He was alert again within minutes, dragging himself up and out of her protesting arms.
“No, wait…” she whispered.
“Gotta get rid of the condom,” he muttered, pulling away from her without any reluctance at all.
Her arms fell away from him, and she watched as he gracefully—despite the trousers still entangled around his ankles—slid from the bed. He dragged his pants up, left them unbuttoned, and strode to the en suite bathroom. She heard the faucet run and sat up with a sigh. She pushed her tumbled hair from her eyes and covered her nudity with a cushion.
She was cross-legged in the middle of the bed, pillow shielding her midriff, when he walked out of the bathroom a couple of minutes later.
It looked like he’d placed his entire head under the faucet. His hair, face, and chest were wet, droplets of water clung to his long, spiky lashes.
His eyes caught and held hers for a brief moment, and then he looked away, scanning the room, until he seemed to find what he was searching for. He moved toward the bed and dragged his shirt out from under it. He shrugged back into the garment and fastened it a lot quicker than he had unbuttoned it.
“I’ll see you in the morning.”
She didn’t know what she had expected, but this…was really not it.
At all.
He was leaving? After that?
“You’re leaving?” She didn’t know why she asked when it was so self-evident. He frowned at her.
“Vicki, we said…” He looked uncomfortable. “You understand…the sex thing? It’s just that, right? Nothing more. We scratched an itch. And now—”
“And now you’re leaving,” she completed. Feeling like an idiot. “Because there’s no reason to stay.”
“You’re still okay with that?”
“It’s the arrangement,” she said, unhappy that her voice did not sound as convincing as she would have liked. She was failing at the first hurdle. She had said she could do this.
“Yeah, that’s the arrangement. Are you okay with that?”
Well, she couldn’t ever say that he had given her no outs. He was always asking if she was okay with it. And she kept saying yes. Which meant that she would damned well have to be okay with it. She had agreed to this.
“I said I was,” she reminded him snippily. “But this type of understanding is new to me, so I need some time to adjust.”
He nodded. His eyes flicked over her face as if he were reassuring himself that she meant what she said, and then they drifted to her naked shoulders, the cushion shielding her from his eyes, and to her crossed legs. His jaw twitched, but his face was expressionless when he met her eyes again.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” he repeated.
“Yes.”
“I…if you—” She waited, but he seemed incapable of completing the thought. He shook his head impatiently. “Goodnight, Vicki.”
“Goodnight, Ty.”
Another searching look, before he tore his gaze away from her face and swept from the room.
Vicki didn’t move while she listened to his heavy tread on the stairs. The front door opened and closed quietly but it was only when she heard the distant ding of the elevator that she allowed herself to breathe.
A deep, shuddering sob of despair. She buried her face in her hands and berated herself for feeling this way. So empty and uncertain. She had agreed to this. Over and over again, she had assured him that she was okay. That this was okay. That she could deal.
The sex had been amazing…but ultimately—when she considered the fact that he hadn’t allowed her to touch him, to please him in the same way he had pleased her—the sex had also been empty.
He had enjoyed it. Of course, he had. As had she, but it was as he had said it would be…on his terms. And she was going to have to decide if the phenomenal sex was worth this awful emptiness afterward.