“Come for me, Sloane,” he demanded, voice nothing but a deep hiss, a desperate plea. “Let me feel you squeeze my cock,” he added as my walls tightened harder, as his words seemed to push me right to the edge. “Come,” he told me again.
The world went white as my orgasm crashed through me, making me cry out loud enough for my throat to hurt, my entire body going taut as my walls tightened around him.
“There you go. I got you,” he promised as he kept thrusting through it. “Give it all to me,” he added as I choked on the end of crying out his name, burying my face in his neck as the final, deep, almost painful pulsation moved through me. “Fuck, Sloane,” he growled as he slammed deep, coming as hard – it seemed – as I just had.
His weight came down more fully on me after, face buried in my neck, heartbeat slamming into my chest where my own was at a frantic pace.
My body felt almost numb for a long couple of moments after, before a strange trembling sensation starting moving through my insides, making me shake.
“Aftershocks,” Gunner said, pressing up, looking down, seeming to take in the confusion on my face. “It’s been a while,” he reminded me as though I could have forgotten. “You’re just… worked up,” he added. “Come on,” he demanded, slowly sliding out of me, then pushing me further up on the bed. “I’ll be right back,” he promised, moving out of my room into the bathroom, giving me a great view of his perfect, muscular ass as he went.
Alone, I slid up and under the covers, figuring maybe I was cold, and possibly wanting to cover up a bit.
Gunner was back in a moment, still gloriously, un-self-consciously naked, going around the other side of the bed, lifting the sheets with a purely masculine disgust at the pink, then sliding inside.
“Come here,” he demanded, curling an arm under my pillows, then pulling me toward him until I was nestled against his chest, his warm skin and heartbeat an immediate comfort, taking the building tension out of my body. “Breathe, duchess,” he reminded me, fingers shivering up and down my spine before traveling upward, toying with my hair. It wasn’t until I felt it fall around my shoulders that I realized he had been working my hair free.
“Hey,” I objected, turning my head up on his chest to see his chin ducked down so he could look at me.
“I like it down,” he told me, shrugging as another, smaller tremor moved through me. “You good?” he asked, his somewhat blunt way of wanting to make sure I was alright, that I wasn’t having some existential crisis about the whole thing.
“Yeah,” I agreed, turning my head back away so he couldn’t see the smile, the truly, completely, uncommonly happy smile that curved my lips until my cheeks hurt. “I’m good.”
And I was.
Perfect really.
The aftershocks faded.
His hands, breath, heartbeat, warmth, and strength lulled me slowly to sleep.
I woke up alone.
As I guess a part of me knew I would.
The dishes were washed.
My file was on the counter.
And he was gone.
Forever.
ELEVEN
Gunner
I was such a fuck.
I knew that.
I had always known that.
But it had never bothered me before.
Before I slid out from underneath a peacefully sleeping Sloane, her body soft, warm, pliant, way too tempting, shrugged back on my clothes, washed the dishes from dinner, then ran out of actions to do. To occupy my time. To drag it out. To delay the inevitable.
I had to go.
I should have gone before.
Before I got to know her taste, her touch, the sounds she made while I was inside her, the way she cried my name as she came.
I should have gone before then.
I knew it as we sat on the couch.
I knew it, but I couldn’t stop it.
I couldn’t help it.
I didn’t even try to fight it.
Even though I knew I had to leave.
I could have waited.
Until she woke up, so I could explain.
But I fucking sucked at goodbyes. And what was there even to say?
I need to leave now. After sleeping with you. Like some common douchebag.
There wasn’t a way to soften the blow.
So I didn’t even try.
And I felt like shit about it.
For the five days it took me to drive back to fucking Navesink Bank. As I tried to settle back in, find my normal groove.
“Leave.”
That was Jules as she stood over my desk, dropping down a pile of the files that were being worked on by all the team members, so I could get caught up.
“What?” I asked, turning my head up to find her standing there, her red hair pulled back in a way that was severe, but with her delicate features, she somehow pulled off. Her hand was at the hip of her gray slacks, something I noticed she only did around me.