Sledgehammer (Hard to Love 2)

I can say with absolute certainty that I’ve never been kissed like that before, with an all-consuming need that couldn’t be denied if lives were at stake. And if you would’ve told me five months ago that I would have this kind of chemistry with this particular man I would’ve laughed in your face. Then again given my life, that’s par for the course.

At our bedroom doors, he stops.

“I have a suggestion.” He slowly turns to face me, his shoulders squaring, his eyes huge, boring into mine with super human intensity. I can sense the charge around him. His expression shifts, growing a little…predatory? Yep, predatory. He slowly steps closer with his hands raised in a sign that could be construed as surrender. Could be construed, I said. This man does not surrender.

“Offer, if you will.” In a spell, I watch him stalk closer. “I propose that…we have sex.”

I’m a deer caught in headlights, frozen and ready to bolt––onto his erection, the massive one pushing against his slacks. My eyes drop. I’ve done a great job of ignoring it until this very minute. Now, I can no longer ignore it.

For the love of erections, I’m human. And sexually frustrated, a very important part of this equation.

“With each other?” I mumble, way too excited for my own good.

He nods at this. “For the sake of our mental health. You don’t have anyone. I don’t have anyone, haven’t for a long time––too goddamn long by the looks of my behavior lately. We should have it together.”

I stare back blankly. On the outside I’m a mummy. Where as on the inside…heck, on the inside, I’m shooting guns off and singing Yankee Doodle Dandy at the top of my lungs. I’m doing cartwheels and kissing my biceps.

I slow nod in agreement, a ready and willing accomplice to this ridiculous plan that has disaster written all over it. “For medicinal purposes,” I suggest.

He takes a couple more steps, his heavy lidded eyes dropping to my lips. “Exactly.”

I watch his Adam’s apple rise and fall as he swallows.

“Abstinence is a dangerous thing. Could make a person do things he or she wouldn’t normally do.”

“Like get in a bar brawl when one can’t afford any negative press,” he adds and gets even closer, close enough that I take in a lung full of his intoxicating scent. “But on one condition.”

I stiffen, nervous that there’s some outlandish request coming. Sorry, but I don’t do threesomes. There may have been a small window of opportunity where that could’ve happened in my early twenties, for shock value more than anything else, but that window closed a long, long time ago. “Yes?” I summon the courage to ask.

“I don’t share.”

Praise Jesus. Thank you, tiny, adorable, newborn, baby Jesus.

“Me neither.”

“That means not even with Jacob, or Gary, or whatever the hell you call those things.”

It takes me a minute to figure out what he’s talking about. An irrepressible grin stretches across my face. “I don’t know. Those guys do a heck of a lot of heavy labor.”

“I’m willing to do just as much, if not more.”

My eyelids are pinned to my forehead, my heart racing. “Promise?”

“Fuck, yeah.” With that, he grabs my face like he has a right to it and cradles it possessively in his wide palms. He’s not tender. Not even a little bit. His mouth crashes into mine, kissing me like a man sentenced to life, a man deprived of something essential. And I am gone, my body and soul humming with a sense of right time, right guy, right everything.

“I trust you won’t poke holes in the condoms,” he mutters in between his relentless kisses. As quickly as he picks me up, I wrap my legs around his waist. Stumbling, we crash into the wall. Without a doubt there will be bruises tomorrow. His hips press into mine. He wants me to feel him. The baseball bat he carries in his pants presses against every part of me that loves baseball bats. Sigh, triple sigh with a cherry on top.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I mutter. “I take it you won’t be giving me pube fleas.”

“Not a chance.”

My fingers dig through his thick, soft hair and close around a fist full. He moans and thrusts his hips, the pleasure edged with a touch of pain. I tear my lips away and place a hand on his chest to stall him from plundering my mouth again. “I have an amendment to our agreement.”

“Which is?” There’s wariness in his voice. He’s scared I might back out. Little does he know. Nothing, and I mean nothing could stop this from happening.

“There will be shagging, banging, boning, even humping. There will, however, be no lovemaking. We good?”

His face stills. The excitement he was wearing a minute ago dims. His eyes search mine but I don’t let him in. I keep my thoughts to myself. Because I’m scared he’ll see how much I want this, how much I want him in particular. I can’t let this be more than a physical thing. Anything more than that and it will destroy me for good. Finito. Annihilation complete. Everything before him was junior league in comparison, and I can’t let him have that kind of power over me.