Reluctant Love, Part One

Chapter Seven

Sophia

“I still can’t believe that you made me stay at that restaurant with my uniform on,” I told Alex as I lay naked atop his chest with his arm around my shoulder.

He chuckled, rubbing his hand up and down my upper arm. “You always look gorgeous no matter what you wear.”

“Do you even know who those people were today?”

His smile lingered before fading away completely. “Your ex and his new wife?”

Had we been on the ground, I would’ve been looking for my jaw to pick it up. “How d—”

“I’ve always liked you.” He looked at me then. The night was dim as it usually was around this area, but there was a bright look in his eyes. Like I was more beautiful than the stars he’d pulled that gaze from. My core melted and I was all too ready to tire myself out again. “And Marsha was a busybody.” He laughed at the last part.

I rolled my eyes. Of course, Marsha.

“You know what was most interesting about today, though?” He continued to speak. “How you didn’t answer when I asked to see you outside of work …”

I sighed and sat up, dragging the blanket that we were using to cover ourselves with me. I propped my free hand on my upraised knee and ran my fingers through my hair. “You know what’s most interesting to me? How you barely tell me anything about yourself, but know almost every damned thing that there is to know about me.”

When I looked back at him, he was staring at me. Both his arms were crossed behind his head, exposing the lines of his muscles and showing the definition of abs on his stomach. I was almost convinced that this man was a model. He could have been, for all that I knew about him.

A model for Cowboy’s Weekly. I almost laughed thinking about it, but decided that now wasn’t the time for that.

“What do you want to know, Sophia?” There was a hint of a smile on his lips. “Ask me and I promise to try to answer as best as I can.”

My eyebrows went high on my forehead. “Are you being serious?”

He unfolded his arms to play with a stray curl of my unbound hair. It was as dark as the night between his fingers. “Why not? But, keep in mind that I said that I’d try to answer your questions. It’s not a guarantee.”

“Oh.” A second ago, there were more than a million questions leaping at the tip of my tongue. Now, they all seemed to disappear. I searched my brain for one. “How come we never go to your house?”

He stopped his twirling for a bit and just stared at the curl. “My mother lives with me. She doesn’t exactly like guests.”

“But isn’t it your house?”

“Yeah, but I mean—” He shrugged. “—respect and all that.” He went back to twirling it.

I nodded. Those warning signs that I’d been ignoring so skillfully all along lit up again. And this time, I didn’t fight them. There was a lie in that story and I knew that. Still, I continued asking my questions. Though, I hesitated to ask the following one.

“W—” I took a breath. “—Do you want kids?”

His eyes went to the strands of hair within his grasp, but he nodded. “I’d like to have one with you someday.” His gaze turned distant and he sat up without removing his fingers from my hair.

“You were disappointed when I said that I didn’t want them.”

Again, he nodded. “I’d never try to change your mind or trap you into anything like that, don’t worry.” He laughed, making me laugh as well. He still hadn’t looked at me. “But you’d make an amazing mother if you ever decided to be one.”

I smiled at him. “Thank you.” Though my heart felt lighter after having gotten most of my answers, there was still something he wasn’t saying.

“Now,” he said as his eyes finally shifted to my face. “Can you answer my questions?”

“If you ask them nicely, then sure.”

“Does you not wanting children have anything to do with the fact that you don’t want to go on a date with me?”

I sighed. Of course, it was going to circle back to this. “It’s not that I don’t want to go on a date with you, Alex. It’s just that …I’m not ready for a relationship again. I can’t deal with any more pain.”

“Pain is what makes pleasure worth it, Soph. But I’d never hurt you, you know that.”

I scoffed. “That’s what they all say.” Even as I said it, I knew that it was already too late. There was no stopping the fall that was coming when I inevitably broke it off with Alex. I had already started liking him too much.

“I’ve been in lo—” He stopped himself at the same time that my eyes widened. He looked at me. “I know what pain is like. Most of it we can’t control. But, as long as I can control it, I promise that your heart will never bleed because of something that I did.”

He may have promised never to make my heart bleed, but boy did he make it melt. I was grateful for the darkness concealing the red that crept onto my face.

His hand traveled to tangle between my strands, making me want him to pull them. “Final question,” he said. “You know why I didn’t care that you wore that uniform to the restaurant?”

I licked at my lips. “Why?”

He tugged the roots of my hair back, exposing my neck to him as his eyes got that glazed-over look that told me he was aroused. “Because every time I see you in it, it makes me want to fuck you into next month.” He kissed my neck. “Every time.”

My heart started beating hard in my chest. He pulled a little harder on my hair. It always made me all the more ready when he did that.

Alex kissed me with a ferocity and passion that I’d only once ever dreamed of. With his tongue moving like silk against mine, he led me back against the blanket that we’d just risen from. He spread my legs apart so that he could lay against me and I wrapped them around his waist.

Everything about this man made me want to give myself completely to him. Just for him. His hands freed my hair to grasp my hips. But he had another thing coming.

Tightening my grip around his waist, I turned us so that I was straddling him. He smiled into the kiss and smacked me hard on my behind, eliciting a moan from me.

“I like it when you take charge,” he whispered as I began kissing and sucking at the warm skin at his neck.

“Then you’re about to love this,” I whispered back.

I kissed my way down his pecs. Then his chest. Then down his stomach. I heard him breathe out a little rush of air when I kissed just above his V-line. Using that as encouragement, I let the trail of kisses go all the way down to where his erect shaft was poking against my chin.

At this point, the blanket that had been covering us both was now halfway down my body.

The night was dim, but I still looked up at him as I gripped him with one hand.

“Don’t be a tease,” he breathed. “Show me what that pretty little mouth does.”

I smiled, accepting the challenge. I passed my tongue along the head, then along the shaft before taking the top of him into my mouth. He sucked in a rush of air and I continued, taking more of him until he hit the back of my throat.

“Fuck, yes,” he said in a small moan before holding back my hair from my face.

Then, I slid him out and repeated the process, taking more and more into my mouth each time until I opened my throat to fit him all in. I deliberately moved slow as I slid him down into my throat and held him there.

He must’ve gotten tired of the teasing. He gripped my head in both hands and began thrusting himself in and out of my mouth. He hit the back of my throat several more times before he stopped, leaving my mouth over the head and his fingers in my hair for several seconds. I looked up to see his eyes closed.