Текст книги "Crosstown Crush"

Автор книги: Cara McKenna

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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

Bern smiled, leaning in, eyes darting.

“What?”

“I’m just looking at you.”

“At my delicate eyelashes?” She batted them.

“Yeah. And everything else. Did you used to have a pierced nose?”

Sam blushed, touching the spot. “Yeah. In grad school. I could never quite carry it off. And the spot’s never quite faded.” She scrutinized him right back. “You’ve got little wrinkles here,” she said, tracing the lines at either corner of his lips. “But they’re way deeper on this side. From that shit-eating Southern grin you wear when you’re about to get away with something.”

He showed her that grin now, the one that gave him a single dimple.

“And you have two perfectly white eyebrow hairs,” she added, stroking them with her thumb.

“I don’t doubt it.” His voice was soft and low, nearly lost to the drone of the TV. Sam watched his lips form every single letter, something shifting between them, unmistakably.

She read the truth in his stare, and felt it echoed in her own. I want you.

In a blink, in a breath. A wanting that had been there always, beneath the surface, and now the harder feelings of the evening had melted away to let it break through. And it did, like a sleeping creature coming to life, spreading its wings, hungry and ready to hunt.

That force rose inside her. As though by magnetism, her hand came up to cup his jaw. She didn’t kiss him; not yet. She brushed her thumb over his thick stubble, studying the contrast of white and silver and darkest brown. His blue eyes looked dark as well, and they watched, wary but hot. Her curious touch moved to his mouth, thumb tracing his bottom lip, then the top, finally, boldly, running along the seam between them. They parted and she could feel his breath – hot. He smelled of wine. It didn’t seem right that he should ever taste of anything else.

“What on earth are we doing?” she asked, holding his face.

“Whatever you want.”

“I don’t know what I want.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Sam swallowed, scared and excited. “I don’t —”

“Just tell me what you need me to be,” he whispered, “and I’ll be that.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Tell me what you need me to be. I’ll be that.

Sam swallowed, hazy all over. Of course he would. That’s what he’d done all along – been who they wanted. The lover Sam could break her marriage vows with; the rival and the intruder to realize Mike’s fantasies.

So what did she need right now? To feel good. To escape the pain and heartache for a little while, and be sheltered by the heat and size of this man’s body. By his desire and her own. Only it wasn’t right, not like this.

But one thing can make it right.

“I can’t kiss you unless we record it,” she whispered, gaze jumping between Bern’s eyes and mouth. “It wouldn’t feel right if he couldn’t watch.”

Bern nodded. He had to know, as she did, that this wouldn’t end with just a kiss. She gave his lip a final stroke then got up. As she crossed to the corner to grab the laptop, she registered her clothes again. Drawstring pants and an old tee – if Bern wanted to see the real Sam, he sure was getting what he was after. No dress, no makeup, mismatched underwear, and puffy eyes. Yet he seemed to like her. Before things had grown heated, he’d seemed to want to be here, as a friend as much as a lover. Seemed to want her, still, even when things weren’t all fun and games.

The movie went silent and she turned to find Bern setting the remote back on the coffee table. She propped the laptop open beside it, aimed it at the couch, and hit RECORD. She joined Bern back on the cushions and whispered too quietly for the computer to pick up, “Just pretend it’s a hidden camera again.”

“Sure.”

Good. Because the alternative was to make this a show, and Sam didn’t have a performance in her tonight. Moreover, she didn’t want to share Bern’s attention with the camera – she wanted his eye contact all to herself. And knowing Mike would get just as hot over a “secret” tape as he would over a cocky, show-offy one, she trusted it wasn’t a selfish need.

She touched Bern’s face as their mouths met, and everything bubbling inside her came to a head. Desire eclipsed sadness as his tongue stroked hers, and a deep breath became a groan in his throat. Her fingertips rasped against his stubble. He’d shaved that morning, but she’d bet his five-o’clock shadow routinely asserted itself by half past ten. She liked that about him. She’d dated mostly clean-cut, academic guys before Mike, and had since realized she liked her men blue-collar and a touch rough – rough around the edges and a bit rough between the sheets, too. She’d thought those more pedigreed guys had been her type – intellectual overthinkers like herself, guys with expensive shoes and strong opinions about restaurants. New York men with advanced degrees and the soft hands to match. It had taken one chance meeting in a dive bar with a Pittsburgh cop to change her tune forever.

She’d been in town that weekend for a friend’s engagement party, and her flight home had been canceled due to some mechanical issue. She’d gone back to the hotel for the night, ended up at the bar across the road, and ultimately wound up taking Mike back to her room. Ten months later, she moved in with him.

And five years later, here she was, feeling a very similar persuasion of lust-wonder, exploring an electrician.

I just need a fireman and a mechanic, and I’ll have the set.

Bern’s hand was strong and broad, fingers splayed possessively along her jaw. His other arm lay along the back of the couch, idly toying with a lock of her hair. The heat between them had crowded out the sadness, filled in all the isolation she’d been adrift in before he’d arrived. A temporary respite, but she’d take what she could get, for as long as it might last. She stroked his chest through his shirt, picturing the bare skin she’d come to know well these past couple of months.

He was wearing a work shirt, and she freed a button, then another, each and every one. She slid her hand inside to feel the heat of him through his tee, the thump of his heart. Her kisses wavered as his hand closed around hers and moved it down – over his hard belly, then pressing it to his even harder erection. She squeezed him through his jeans, earning a low moan and stealing control, if only for a breath.

“I want you,” he said. “So bad.”

“Do you?” Hungry for proof to underline those words, she undid his fly and exposed him.

“You see how bad?” he whispered.

Sam nodded, swallowed, spoke too quietly for the computer’s microphone to possibly hear. “I never thought I’d ever be with another man, after I married him. And not like this.” She stroked his bare cock, wondering if he even knew what she meant. It was undeniably different now, without the condoms. Not the sensations, just… She wasn’t even sure. The way it blurred the few lines left among the three of them. If Mike wasn’t to be the only man who got to have her, she’d have assumed he’d at least be the only one who got to come in her, like that. And if Bern got that, too, and this sex felt so intimate and personal… What was still Mike’s?

Our love.Our home, our day-to-day life, my family. Those were a lot. Those were huge, but she couldn’t help but feel that this was wrong somehow, even with the camera running.

In her gut, and in her heart, it was just the two of them.

It’ll be his, too, when he watches the video. But did she really believe that, or merely want to, for the sake of permission?

“What do you need tonight?” Bern asked, his hips shifting, pushing his cock into her strokes.

“Just to feel good.” Emotions rose and tightened her throat. Just to not feel bad, for a little while. Take me there. Too much to say aloud without risking tears. Mike didn’t need a video of Bern rocking his sobbing, hysterical wife on their couch. That was an intimacy too far, even set against all the carnal things they’d done together.

“Here,” Bern said. The next moment he was on the floor, kneeling before her, coaxing her legs over. She let him slide her pants and underwear off in one slow, gentle motion. His attention was on her skin as he stroked her calves and thighs. There was reverence in his eyes, and his gaze was as soft as she’d ever seen it. She wondered for a brief, dangerous second, what kind of a boyfriend this man would make. He’d so embodied the brash role they’d written for him, it hadn’t occurred to her he could be this tender.

That same scratchy stubble she’d caressed was on her thigh now, a sharp tease to contrast the soft lips trailing kisses up her leg. When he tugged at her hips, she scooted closer, opening up for him. Her fingers tangled in his overgrown hair, and she led his mouth right where she needed it.

A soft lap, another. Deeper, deeper, until he was giving her those hungry strokes she’d been fantasizing about since their very first night in bed together. He gave head like it was a feast. Like it was for him. Mike gave head like he was treating Sam, and he knew exactly what she liked. But there was an undeniable thrill to being consumed, to feeling like this act was something she was giving a man, and not the other way around.

She fisted his hair gently. “Feels good, baby. I like how deep you get.”

He met her gaze. “I’ll show you deep.”

“I bet you will.”

“Not till I make you come.” Bern went back to work.

She loved how he looked from this angle. His eyes were shut, lashes dark and long, brow drawn in concentration or excitement. She studied the streaks at his temples, more silver than gray, she decided. Studied his fingers, and the soft dents they made in her thighs, and his nails… Tidy nails, clean for a man who spent his workdays on building sites.

Words dropped from her subconscious, brightening the space between them. “You’re so sexy.” He gave her more, his nose glancing her clit as he tasted her with long, filthy sweeps of his tongue. Her words had spurred him, but they scared her. Not the words themselves – she was supposed to be objectifying him. No, it was the way she’d spoken them. With more awe than lust. She needed to make this dirty, and fast.

“I need your cock, baby.”

“Do you, then?” He showed no signs of stopping.

“Please. It’s all I can think about.”

He slipped a hand between her legs, two thick fingers sliding deep as his mouth moved to her clit. She gasped from the penetration, and all at once her fretful fib was true – she needed his cock, now. Needed his excitement driving into hers in the rawest, darkest ways, erasing everything outside of the sex.

“You’re wet,” he murmured, fingers pumping. “Wet enough?”

“Yeah. I’m ready.”

“Want you as wet as I can get you, first. Wanna earn this.”

“You have. Just… please. You. Now.”

He quit teasing. Had he heard in her voice how badly she needed him? Needed his body inside hers, but simpler things as well. His face. His words. The weight and heat of him above her, and the blissful, relentless motion of his hips as he rocked them both into oblivion.

When he stood, Sam lay back. He shed his work shirt, peeled away his tee, pushed his open jeans down his thighs. He stripped naked for her, then joined her on the couch, lowering that thrilling, beautiful body to hers. He held himself up on one arm and angled his cock between her legs, easing in halfway, backing off, edging deeper. He made a wondrous sound, a sigh mixed with a moan, and framed her chest with his forearms, settling in.

“This what you need?” he asked, and began to thrust.

She shut her eyes and dunked herself in the sensations for a long moment. “Yeah. That’s exactly what I need.”

His pace was quick, but not rushed. “You miss this when we’re apart?”

“Every minute.”

“Me, too. I love it inside you, this way,” he whispered, slowing, making her feel how right – how wrong – this was. Just their skin and nothing more, just her excitement and his.

In the back of her mind, she knew he shouldn’t be whispering, but she loved his voice this way, so soft and personal. Hers. She loved these words that made a sacred place of her body, and not for the sake of defiling it.

“You feel so fucking good.” Again, so quiet. Spoken louder, brasher, those words could have fulfilled Mike’s script for the two of them, but whispered this way, they hummed like a secret. His voice grew quieter still when he pressed his mouth to her throat, exhaling in a hot rush. “Soft, and warm —”

“Don’t whisper. He should be able to hear.”

But for once, Bern didn’t do as instructed. There was no way the recording caught it when he told her, “There’s things I want just between you and me.”

“It can’t work that way.”

“Only words, Sam. What he wants brought me here,” he murmured, and nipped at her neck. “I say the sorts of things he wants to hear, fuck you how he wants to see us. I’m his porn star, taking his requests, but I’m a man, too. I don’t ask for much. Just a few harmless words.”

Were they harmless, though? If the things he was saying weren’t hurtful to Mike…

It’s not letting him hear that’s hurtful.

Or would not allowing Bern to voice them be just as hurtful? He wasn’t their whore, after all. He was their lover, and his needs mattered.

She whispered back, “What else?”

Bern moaned, and loud enough to be heard. He took her hard and quick with long, deep thrusts, before settling back into the steadier motions.

“I think about you,” he breathed. “About what we’ve done. And about you watching us doing those things. Watching the movies.”

She clawed his back, making him buck.

“Tell me you’ve watched.”

“I have.”

“Tell me…” He panted, sounding all at once overcome, his powerful body growing graceless and heavy. “Tell me it was real, the times I’ve made you come.”

All but one. All but that first night, when he’d been too new, too novel to truly let go with. “It’s real.”

“Oh…” His heavy breathing left her skin slick where his lips teased her jaw. “This is his fantasy you’re realizing. Him watching us, and you taping me – that’s mine. What’s yours, Sam?”

“I… I get to sleep with you.”

“That’s still his. What’s yours?”

Her fantasies… They were so simple, so blah compared to Mike’s and Bern’s. Sometimes when she made love to Mike, she imagined he was someone else: a celebrity, or a character from a movie or TV show or book. Someone not unlike Bern – an exemplification of exquisite maleness. Like any woman, she fantasized about the lovers she had assumed she’d passed up forever in exchange for the security of monogamy. She’d explored that variety from the safety of her imagination. And now, in reality. On her couch.

“This is his and mine,” she told Bern, fingers tangling in his hair.

He held her stare, and something in that look said he didn’t believe her. But all he said was, “Then I better give it to you good.”

And he did. The sex grew rougher, quicker, needier. Lit by the glow of the computer, Bern’s face was set in stark concentration, his teeth nearly clenched and his breaths coming in low grunts to punctuate each thrust. Sam felt every ounce of that aggression. It echoed through her, but she felt her own ferocity mirroring his. She wanted him. She loved the way he wanted her.

She wrapped her arms tight around him, hugging his strong, long body close, urging his hips with the greedy motions of her own. Messy sex, with the most obvious views blocked from the camera’s watching eye. Not porno-hot or choreographed to incite. Just two people who wanted each other in the homeliest and most urgent ways, two bodies giving and taking and sweating and aching together.

“What do you need, Sam?” He practically breathed the question, surely just a groan to the microphone.

“This.”

“What else? Tell me how to get you there. Because I can’t last forever.”

“Make your angle sharper, so – yeah. Just like that.” He’d raised his hips a little higher, so the base of his cock brushed her clit with every stroke. “God yeah. Exactly like that.” She threaded her fingers through his hair and held on tight, eyes shutting. She let the room become a concept, a dark, warm space populated by their mingled breath and heat and noises. She felt release inching closer with every push of his body, like he was forcing her to the edge, stroke by stroke by stroke.

“Make me come,” she whispered.

He gave it to her faster, strokes shorter and rougher.

“Yeah. Like that.”

“Come for me, honey.”

“I will. Don’t stop.”

All it took was a half dozen more pushes, and she was there. And so was Bern. He didn’t slow when her moan announced her orgasm – he raced home beside her, his own groan turned staccato by the frantic hammering of his hips. And with no chance to come down, Sam felt an aftershock rising up.

“Don’t stop,” she begged when his release had his hips locking. “Don’t stop, don’t stop.”

With a pained gasp he obeyed, thrusts hard and uneven. Sam held his neck and arm, nails digging, and rode a second shorter, sharper orgasm. As it crested she released her grip, and Bern stilled. He was softening inside her, and his body loosened to match.

“Holy shit.”

Sam nodded, lost for words. She stroked his damp back and he caught his breath, racing exhalations steadily deepening against her throat. But as the fog of the orgasms lifted, so did the relief they’d offered.

Sam felt sober instantly – backhanded by reality.

She glanced to the side, to the digital green light that said her computer was recording.

Mike can’t watch this.

Good God, what had she been thinking? She hadn’t been thinking. She’d let her attraction mute her good sense and set Mike’s rights and feelings aside to meet her own momentary, impulsive needs.

If he watched, he’d see that the sex had been different. No doubt of it.

He’d notice how Bern hadn’t once looked at the camera. He’d notice there was no dirty talk… not the cocky kind, meant for his ears. He’d notice that Sam hadn’t even bothered to take her shirt and bra off – that the show hadn’t been on her mind, but the sex certainly had. He’d notice that Bern the exhibitionist had been almost completely absent, and that Sam had just slept with someone entirely new.

“Fuck.”

Bern raised himself up on straight arms, expression darkening from bliss to worry. “You okay?”

She sat up, forcing him to his knees. There was a naked man on her and Mike’s couch. She stood and clamped a hand between her legs, fingers met by the spoils of everything they’d just done. “No, I’m not sure I am.”

“You thinking about your cousin?”

“No. I’m thinking about Mike.” She hurried to hit STOP on the computer, feeling ridiculous – shirt, no pants, hand making a dam between her thighs. “I can’t let him watch this. That was way too…” She turned, finding Bern holding out the toilet paper roll. Dignity abandoned, she dabbed between her legs, then pulled on her underwear and pants.

Bern stood, and she hated the hungry way her gaze sought his chest and belly as he hiked up his shorts and jeans.

He tugged on his tee, and as the collar fell into place to reveal his face, Sam found his brow gathered in worry. “That was… It was intense, yeah. And probably not what he’s expecting to see.”

She shook her head, panic rising.

“Sit,” he said gently.

She did, feeling that wetness along her sex and a pang of shame.

Bern crouched before her. “It’ll be okay.”

“Will it?”

“I know, that wasn’t… that wasn’t right, was it?”

“I don’t think so, no.”

“We’ve been making porn for him before,” Bern said, attention on Sam’s fidgeting hands. He took them, but she slithered her fingers free.

“Don’t.”

“Sorry.”

“That was… like lovemaking, wasn’t it?” she asked, body flashing hot, then ice-cold.

He nodded.

“I mean, not that we’re in love,” she added, unwilling to even entertain that idea. “But you know what I mean. That was intense, and emotional, and just way too different. That…” She met his eyes, fear tightening her chest. “That was just for us, wasn’t it? There was no room in that for Mike at all.”

Bern wore an expression she’d never seen on that handsome face, and it dunked her in ice water. He agreed. And she had to wonder, had he known as she had in the back of her mind, that what they’d done was wrong? Had he suppressed that glaring fact for the sake of lust? Or had he known all along that he’d let things get as intimate and private as he had, and chosen to go there regardless? She wasn’t sure she could handle knowing which was the truth, and focused instead on the crisis at hand, the unerasable mistake they’d just made.

“I can’t show Mike that.”

“Will you tell him it happened?”

“I have no idea. I feel like… I feel like I just cheated on him. For real.”

Bern’s gaze retreated, moving around the room. “I don’t really know what to say. I’m sorry, I guess —”

“Don’t. Don’t be sorry. Neither of us meant for that to happen the way it did. Right?”

“No, not like that.”

She chose to believe him. “We got carried away. We were doing exactly what we had his permission to, just sort of…”

“Doing it all wrong,” Bern offered, with a hint of a sheepish smile.

“Pretty much.” She wished she could mirror even a sliver of his levity, but she didn’t feel it. Who had he just betrayed, after all? A man he’d known for a couple of months, while the solidity of Sam’s entire marriage felt damaged.

Bern touched Sam’s feet, and she let him. “I didn’t mean for this to happen. Honestly. This isn’t what I stayed for tonight. I only wanted to be what you needed.”

“And you were. I just feel really guilty about what my body decided I needed. Jesus, in all our planning, I never saw this coming.” Did I? Fuck if it hadn’t felt natural. Maybe even inevitable. Fuck, fuck, fuck…

“It’s an emotional kind of night,” he said, squeezing her feet. “Nobody could expect you to just slip into the role or whatever, given everything that’s on your mind.”

But they wouldn’t expect her to fucking make love to her supposed sleazy piece on the side, either.

“I’m sorry, Sam. Maybe I should go. Let you get to bed, and maybe you’ll feel a little less freaked out in the morning?”

Say yes. Tell him to go. That was her brain’s contribution. Something softer and more dangerous whispered, Ask him to stay. The last thing you want to be right now is alone. Frozen by the choice, she said nothing.

On the counter, her phone buzzed and chimed. Then again – a call, not a text.

“Fuck. That’s him.” She let it ring, rubbing her face.

“I don’t know how your marriage works,” Bern said slowly, “but I don’t know that you need to tell him, necessarily. Not if the truth would hurt him.”

“I’ve never had a decent reason to lie to him before… and I don’t know that I could if I wanted to.” Or if she even wanted to. Truth only. Always. Her body chilled to imagine it. Please, God, don’t let her have ruined Mike’s kink for him – or, far worse, his trust in her. “He’ll believe me, that it was just impulsive. Just my emotions getting the better of me.”

Bern nodded.

But yes, you’d really better go. Because how could Mike believe that him staying, after, could be blamed on impulse? Bern, sleeping in their bed? No, that couldn’t happen. By some twisted magic, Bern could fuck Sam, but sleeping beside her? Way out of bounds. There was no ambiguity on that count.

She stood. “You need to go. I’m sorry. You’ve been so lovely, but we have to call it a night.”

“Sure.” He carried their glasses to the breakfast bar. “I’ll show myself out. Just… just be kind to yourself, okay, Sam? We didn’t plan this, and you’ve had a fuck of a shock today.”

She nodded, then turned away, busying herself tidying the coffee table. She slapped the laptop closed.

His quiet good night was the last thing she heard before the door clicked shut down the hall. She eyed the clock, feeling alone and cold, worse than before he’d arrived. So many different kinds of hurting.

It was eight thirty, and Mike had probably just seen her text when he’d called. Before then, he’d surely been hoping for an e-mail by ten – not only hoping, he’d have been hungry for it. And she had none fit to show him. Instead she’d have to call and disappoint him, tell him, I’m sorry, but something terrible’s happened.

And when he asked her what she meant, God only knew if she’d tell him the whole truth behind why she was crying.