“I didn’t used to take them up on it. Or at least, not very often. I much preferred having a girlfriend, having someone I could hang out with outside of bed as well as in it. But … I don’t know. Things got all crazy after my parents died, after Logan got hurt. And I just …” I trail off, embarrassed at how vulnerable I sound. And at how much of a loser I’ve turned into.
And now, instead of burying that shit deep and throwing away the key, I’m pouring the
whole, sad story out to the same girl I currently want to sleep with.
Tansy reaches over, covers my knee with her hand. “I wasn’t really watching porn, you know.”
My eyes jump to hers. Seriously? I just fucking poured my heart out to her—at least as much as I’m capable of—and she’s still on the porn thing? “I don’t care about the—”
She lifts her fingers to my mouth, stops me mid-tirade. “My sister sent me some links because I was embarrassed about what happened last night. About how I messed up the whole—” She flushes a bright scarlet again, but takes a deep breath, makes herself keep going. “Hand job/blow job thing. I’m sorry about that, by the way. It’s just because I’ve never done it before and well, Anna thought maybe I could learn from the videos.”
For a second her words don’t compute. Like I honestly can’t get my brain to wrap around them and figure out what the hell she’s even talking about. Blow job/hand job thing? Never done it before? I understand the words, but what I don’t understand is why Tansy is saying them like they’re her secret shame.
What I do understand, though, is the vulnerability in Tansy’s eyes, in her face. And I know telling me this is her way of evening the playing field, of making me feel less exposed after what I just said to her.
That block of ice in my fucking chest melts just a little bit more. Goddamnit. I don’t have time for this, don’t want this right now. Except … I kind of do, don’t I? Because I want her. Beneath me. Wrapped around me. Her body moving against mine. I want her every way I can get her.
But then her words sink in and I realize just how much I damaged her when I walked away last night. It’s the last thing I wanted to do—I was trying to do the exact opposite, in fact—but I can see the shadows of hurt lurking in the back of her eyes. The same shadows that were there after I told her back in Park City that I had been trying to chase her away.
Fuck. I’ve become a real bastard, haven’t I? So wrapped up in my own shit that I don’t even notice when I’ve hurt someone. Could I be more of a dick?
“Hey,” I tell her, moving my own hand to cup her cheek. “You didn’t do anything wrong last night.”
“I’m not a child. You don’t have to placate me.” She shrugs me off, starts to stand up. But I grab on to her hands, keep her in place.
“You’d been drinking, Tansy. I saw you with Luc, could taste the wine on you when I kissed you. I didn’t want to take advantage of that. I didn’t know how drunk you were and the last thing I wanted was for you to wake up this morning feeling like I took more than you wanted to give.”
“But you—” Her voice breaks and she clears her throat, starts again. “You went down on me.”
“And I’d do it again in a heartbeat. You’re gorgeous when you come.”
“Ash!”
She’s blushing yet again. This time, though, I don’t stop myself from leaning over and taking a little bite.
Tansy jumps at the feel of my teeth on the underside of her jaw, though I’m careful not to hurt. “It’s true,” I tell her after licking my tongue against the sensitive spot, taking away the sting. “If you’d been sober, I would have been more than happy to have you all over my dick, with whatever portion of your anatomy you wanted to put there.”
“Ash!” My name is a strangled sound in her throat, but that doesn’t matter, because I can see the look in her eyes. Can see the interest there, as well as the fact that the hurt is fading.
It’s enough for now, more than enough. I pick her up, settle her down on my lap, so that she’s straddling me, her knees on the bed and her pussy pressed right up against my suddenly very hard cock.
“Does that feel like I’m not interested to you?”
Her eyes go wide, but she shakes her head even as she rocks against me. I bite back a groan. Fist my hands in the bedcovers in an effort to keep from grabbing her hips and taking control of the whole situation. To keep from grinding her down against me until we both come with our fucking jeans still on. She might be inexperienced, but she’s a fast learner. I’ll give her that.
To distract myself—or maybe just to make the whole thing worse—I press hot kisses over her lips, her cheeks, her jaw, her neck.
She moans a little, her fingers clutching at my hair as I suck a bruise into the delicate skin at the hollow of her throat. I want to mark her up, to cover her in hickeys and love-bites so that Luc and every other guy at this fucking resort knows what she’s been doing—and who she’s been doing it with.
It’s a ridiculous thought considering the fact that I’m not in the market for anything permanent, but it’s a gut reaction. One I don’t even know how to fight.
When it gets to be too much, when the need to plunge inside her is a red haze in my brain, I force myself to lift my head. To try to slow things down a little. If Tansy thinks she needs to watch porn to learn how to give a hand or blow job, she doesn’t have much experience. Which means, if I don’t want to scare her, I probably shouldn’t come at her like a fucking sex addict.
“So,” I ask her, forcing the clawing need back down so I can think. “Did you learn anything from your, uh, research tonight?”
“Oh my God!” She pulls away, her face twisted in disgust as her voice goes higher and higher with each word. “I don’t know what kind of pervert my sister is, but the links she sent me were disgusting. I mean, I just wanted to see a guy and a girl and I pretty much got everything else. I mean, there were these guys and they used their fists. And then there was a Doberman. And then—”
I cut her off her panicked diatribe with a kiss. This time, I take my time, tracing her perfect bow-shaped lips with my tongue before slowly, gently, licking my way inside her mouth.