Текст книги "Pulled Under"

Автор книги: Sarah Darlington

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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

CHAPTER 7:

 

 

 

 

 

SYDNEY

Rhett had a very large penis. Was I allowed to think that? Was I allowed to like that? Holy crap. Kind of intimidating and kind of pretty. And it matched his seemingly photo-shopped abs and mouthwatering thighs perfectly. Jeez, what was it about his thighs that I found so damn attractive? I didn’t know. I just knew I liked them. And now I knew I liked his penis too.

Man, I was such a weirdo.

A weirdo and a virgin.

Closing my mouth, because it was pretty much hanging wide open, I reminded myself to breathe. A moment ago, when he’d asked me if I was a virgin, I’d lied. I’d lied because I feared if I told him the truth he might start treating me differently. Everything had been going well thus far, better even, and I wouldn’t be able to handle it if he’d stopped looking at me like that. Because that was the way he’d been treating me all night—like I was something special, like I hung the freaking moon in the sky. It was the exact way I’d always wished Ben had looked at me. Maybe Rhett wouldn’t look at me any different if he knew the truth, but I wasn’t willing to find out. Besides, he would never know the difference…right? Guys couldn’t actually tell that sort of thing. It was only a myth that they could.

I wasn’t one-hundred percent sure. But I hoped not.

My eyes finished their inspection of his naked body, my gaze returning to his face.

“Like what you see?” he asked.

“Yes,” I breathed.

His ego was through the roof, but I couldn’t even begin to deny my attraction.

“Good.”

Our eyes connected. Then, as if he couldn’t stay still another second, he moved across the room, took my face in his hands, and kissed me. The intensity of our kiss was like no other. When we kissed there was some sort of mutual, automatic, animalistic understanding that passed between us—like we were perfectly in sync on a physical level. Every kiss we’d shared thus far, including this one, seemed to always have that common denominator. It was good. It didn’t make sense…but it was good.

“I want you naked,” he whispered against my mouth. “Now. No more foreplay. No more banter. Just sex.” Before I even had a moment to process his words, he lifted me up into his arms and tossed me onto his freshly made bed.

Um, wow. Damn. What was that? Maybe I’d let loose some sort of beast by telling him I wasn’t a virgin and giving him the green light. Because the naked guy that stared down at me, with eyes so full of life and fire, didn’t look like he was about to be easy or gentle or hold anything back with me. Which was exactly what I needed and expected from him. This was the Rhett Morgan with the reputation.

He joined me in the bed and his fingers began working immediately, unbuttoning my dress. There were too many buttons, and he could have ripped my dress apart in haste, as he had so indelicately done with my panties in the car, but Rhett carefully unbuttoned each one. He reached the end and pushed the pieces of material apart, exposing me.

“Sit up,” he ordered.

I did as he asked.

He pushed the straps of my dress off my shoulders so the material fell away. Then he reached around my back and unclasped my bra. He tugged it away and then, always one for the dramatic, flung it into some unknown corner of his room.

Topless with a guy. Another first.

The lights in his room weren’t even dim. There was no hum of music or any other sound to distract away from the fact that it was just the two of us, fully and completely naked. And yet…I didn’t feel all that uncomfortable or embarrassed. Actually, all I felt was need. I needed his hands on my body. I needed his lips on my lips. I needed to feel him inside me. Now that this moment had come, I was glad it was about to happen with Rhett. I didn’t feel the same shyness with Rhett that I used to feel around Ben.

Rhett crawled on top of me and his mouth went straight to one of my nipples. He kissed, sucked, and licked in ways I never knew possible. A shot of pure heaven. He had my skin prickling and buzzing. His mouth worked its way from my breasts all the way to my waiting mouth. Those X-rated lips of his pressed against my lips. With one easy probe of his tongue, I opened up and let him in. Our tongues met and danced in a way that was quickly becoming familiar and easy.

This lasted for a minute or two, perhaps longer, I’d sort of lost track of time so it was hard to know for sure, then suddenly his touch and his kiss left me. He jumped out of bed and grabbed something off his nightstand—a condom. I watched as he ripped the packaging, dropped the wrapper somewhere on the floor, and then rolled the condom over his length in a manner of seconds. It was an impressive sight to see.

“You like watching?” He winked and shot me a cocky grin. “Don’t you?”

I shrugged, but I think he could tell how much I was enjoying myself. Because I was.

Joking aside, he cleared his throat and grew serious. “You know, I’m in awe of you. You’re cool as hell, the most beautiful woman that has ever and will ever be in my bed, and I’ve got this mad crush. Seriously, out of left field, blindsiding, call my mother with the good news—that sort of crush.” He gave me the most genuine smile. It made my stomach flip and this shiver run through me. “I just needed you to know that.”

I didn’t know how to respond. All I knew was that I suddenly felt vulnerable as hell. He moved over me, settling between my legs, and he positioned the head of his erection against my entrance. I wrapped my legs around him, ready for it, wanting it, but scared to death of it. He pressed a kiss to my cheek and then suddenly he was pushing inside me, filling me, and it hurt way more than I ever expected.

I’d been planning on hiding my pain—if there was any—and lying until the cows came home about my virginity. Hell, if my hymen broke and he questioned it, I even had a lie for that. I figured I’d tell him the only other guy I’d been with had had a really small penis. Something. Anything other than the truth. I wanted tonight to be fun and easy, not complicated and emotional.

But I couldn’t lie to him. Because, even if he was the world’s biggest player with a million and one notches on his bedpost, I liked him just as much as he seemed to like me. Despite everything else. Despite my broken heart and despite Ben. And as he pressed inside me, as the pain overwhelmed me and my emotions exploded, as he was probably realizing the truth for himself, I wrapped my arms around his neck as tight as I could and whispered, “I’m a virgin.”

He stilled the second the words left my lips. Shit. I messed everything up. Tears pooled behind my eyes. I waited for him to pull out and end everything…except, he didn’t. He only remained frozen. So I froze too.

Then finally he whispered something to me. “And you want me to be your first?”

“Yes,” I breathed.

“Okay,” he said softly.

My heart squeezed.

This wasn’t over.

Without argument, complaint, or comment, he ever so slowly and carefully, pulled out and inched back inside me. It stung, but not nearly as bad as his initial thrust. I let my death-grip around his neck loosen. Once I gave him a little room to move, he started pressing little kisses to my shoulder, then up the side of my neck, and then all over my face and lips. All his kisses felt so good, so comforting, and they helped me relax. He moved slowly in and out for a third time, and this time the pain from before was significantly less.

I laughed a little at my own fear. This wasn’t bad at all.

Rhett shifted his weight onto his arms, so that he could properly stare down at me. He gave me this fake stern look, followed by a flirty grin, and then more kisses. Meanwhile, our love-making fell into a gentle rhythm. My emotions were still sky-high, but whatever was left of the pain transferred into pleasure. Really. Amazing. Pleasure.

But there was something I enjoyed even more.

Never in my life had I felt so connected to another human being. Telling him the truth and the way he had handled it, had created this instant bond between us. It was intense, crazy, and wonderful all at once—like my ribs were cracked wide open and my heart was showing. It wasn’t a one-sided feeling either. There was no doubt in my mind that Rhett felt exactly what I did—all the emotions, all the tingles, all the excitement. I could see it in his eyes and feel it in his touch. Instead of being only physically on the same wave length, we were mentally there too.

Then, as if I wasn’t feeling enough already, he reached a hand down between our joined bodies and his fingers brushed across my clit. “What are you doing?” I asked, stunned.

“I’m going to try to make you come.”

“You shouldn’t do that,” I breathed, squeezing my arms around him and burying my face against his shoulder.

“Why not?”

He continued to stroke his hand against me as his thrusts remained deliberate and even. To be honest, I didn’t think I could handle more. If I came for him right this moment, like I had in his car earlier, I might do serious damage to my already fragile emotional state. Everything happening was already too overwhelming, too exposing on every level. But the combination of his hand against me and his dick buried deep inside felt too good to protest.

“Trust me,” he whispered into my ear. “Just trust me.”

Only now did I notice that his breaths were uneven and choppy, his skin glistening with a layer of sweat, and the muscles in his arms tense and straining. I was getting to him just as much as he was getting to me. It also occurred to me that having slow and gentle sex wasn’t normally how a playboy like Rhett did things. And yet, here he was, making another exception for me. Knowing how much he cared—knowing how much I cared—that realization had a direct effect on my clit, no lie, and this overwhelming tightening feeling hit me.

A warm sensation spread across my chest. The tightening increased.

“I don’t want to come,” I choked out.

There wasn’t much of a choice in the matter. It happened anyway. Everything around me faded out of existence, except for the hot, tingling explosion that erupted through my whole body. I couldn’t breathe or think or see. It was euphoric. The opposite of emotional. I screamed Rhett’s name and squeezed those arms of his as hard as I could. I was so focused on everything happening to me physically, that only when I started to come down from my high, did I realize that something similar had happened to Rhett.

He’d orgasmed with me. And I sort of missed it being too caught up in my own bliss. Which was a shame because I wished I could have watched him and seen his face during it. Now that the moment was done, he rolled away, pulled the condom off, and tossed it into a trashcan near his bed. He lay beside me, and this very long, very satisfied sigh left his lips.

“How was that for your first time?” he asked, turning toward me and brushing my hair away from my face.

“Intense,” I admitted.

“You can say that again. I’ve never done it like that before.” He traced his hands across my chest and then lightly over my breasts. “You have nice tits, by the way.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I think.” But I was more focused on the other thing he’d said. “What did you mean by ‘you’ve never done it like that before’?”

“Just that it felt personal. In a good way. That’s all.”

I think I knew what he meant. Rhett and I might have started the day as strangers, essentially, but we weren’t anymore. We’d connected during sex. And it wasn’t something that had ended now that it was over. I still felt it.

“Come here,” he said, tugging at my waist and pulling me in against his hot skin. “Does it hurt?” His fingers brushed low on my stomach and gently across my sensitive area. “Down here.”

“A little.” It was very tender.

“Can I do anything to help?”

“Just keep holding me,” I uttered. It was a needy request. I wasn’t a needy person, but I was in that moment. The feel of his arms around me, his skin against my skin, and his breath tickling the base of my neck—all of it was exactly what I needed. In four months, this was the best therapy yet.

“I can do that,” he whispered. “I can do that all night. I’m not letting you go anywhere.”

And he kept his word. His arms held me tightly in against him all night long.

* * *

I woke up to the sound of glass breaking. Rhett jumped in his sleep and immediately sat up. “Shit,” he whispered. “What was that?” He rushed out of bed and over to his dresser. He grabbed a pair of jeans, yanked them on, and then pulled a white shirt from the drawer, which he tossed in my direction. “Put that on, sweetheart.” Next a clean pair of his boxers came flying at me. “These too.”

He pulled one of his baseball bats off its hook on the wall.

That was when I grew scared. A shot of adrenaline hit me and that fight or flight feeling kicked in. “You think somebody broke into your house?” I sat up, quickly pulling on the clothes he’d given me.

“Possibly,” he whispered. “I’m going to check it out.”

“I’m coming with.”

“No, you’re not.”

He didn’t give me time to argue—he left before I could protest. But I wasn’t about to let him go out there alone. A few years back my mom was mugged in NYC. A totally random event. But being held at gun point had terrified her. After it happened, she made me take these extensive self-defense classes with John. Rhett might have been the one built like a MAA fighter, but I wasn’t completely useless in a fight. I had faith that I could help him. So I followed him.

Only, it wasn’t an intruder. It was a broken glass on the kitchen floor and a man in his pajamas. Rhett’s roommate, Noah, I assumed. He’d broken the glass.

“Put down the bat, Rhett,” he said, calmly. “You couldn’t hit for shit even when you were on the Daredevils, and anyway, it was me who made the noise.” Noah motioned to the shattered glass on the floor.

A laugh escaped my lips.

Not because of Noah’s words. Or because of the broken glass. It was a nervous laugh. Because I’d seen this guy named Noah once before. At Ben’s funeral. He’d been with Ben’s family, standing outside the doors when I first went into the building. Then I’d seen him again when I left. He’d been the one with tears in his eyes. His shoulder-length blond hair, currently tied back in a ponytail, was his distinguishing feature.

But it wasn’t just the three of us in the room. There was a woman too. And I knew her as well. Ellie. Ben’s oldest sister. The one John knew. Oh, God. How was it possible that I was suddenly surrounded by Ben’s people? Did that mean Rhett was someone Ben had known, too?

Rhett set the bat down on the kitchen table. “What are you doing? Other than breaking shit?”

“There was a rat,” Noah told him.

Rhett chuckled. “And you decided to throw a glass at it?”

He seemed relieved. I wasn’t.

Noah shrugged. “Something like that.”

Neither she nor Noah had even noticed or acknowledged my existence in the room. That didn’t speak well for Rhett. He probably brought home so many different girls that we were all faceless to them.

“Wait, what?” Ellie asked the guys. “Did you just say rat?” Ellie continued. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. First we had those weird silverfish bugs and now rats! I’m getting the hell out of here. Now!” She turned on her feet, hurried across the living room, and disappeared into a room. Less than ten seconds later she returned with a wallet and keys in her hands. “I know you and your OCD can’t handle disease-carrying rats—let’s go, Noah. I’m too tired for this bullshit. We’re going to Mom’s.”

“I don’t have OCD,” Noah argued.

“Like hell you don’t. I’ll be in the car. Clean up the glass because I know you need to. I’d offer to help, but you’ll just criticize the way I clean.” She shook her head and went for the front door. “Meet me outside when you’re finished. Please, try not to take all night.”

Rhett laughed, not caring about the rat or the broken glass. “Come on, sugar,” he said to me. “Let’s go back to bed. Ellie’s right; Noah’s particular about cleaning so it’s better to leave him alone.” He pulled on my arm, leaving Noah in the kitchen and leading me back toward his bedroom. I let him. I was too overwhelmed at the moment to say a word.

Rhett had known two people from Ben’s funeral—Ben’s sister and this blonde guy. I had to infer that meant he also knew Ben. We didn’t live in that big of a town, this sort of thing wasn’t out of the realm of possibilities, but, still, this knowledge felt like a kick to the stomach. I thought I’d escaped Ben for the night. I guess escaping from him would never be possible.

Rhett unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans, letting them drop to the floor, then he turned off the lights in his room, and pulled me back into bed with him. I complied. But now, lying in his arms made my head spin. And, no, not because he was buck-naked and fearless about it. My head spun because my night with Rhett was suddenly tainted. By Ben.

“You okay?” he asked. “You’re rigid as a board. Trust me, we don’t have rats. You have nothing to be afraid of. Noah was lying about that. His OCD is so bad, sometimes I catch him cleaning in the middle of the night, so I doubt a rat would ever want to come into our house. Something else is up with him. I think I know what, but it’s not my business.”

“What do you think it is?” I asked, keeping my voice as normal as possible. I probably shouldn’t have asked this, but I had to know what he knew. “If you don’t mind me asking? He seemed a little shaken up.”

Rhett held me tighter. He’d literally just told me this wasn’t his business, so it surprised me when he told me everything. “A few months ago, Ellie’s little brother died. His name was Ben Turner. You might have known him. You should have seen how packed his funeral was. I think everyone in this whole damn town knew and loved that kid.”

I’d seen how packed the funeral was. I’d been there.

“Anyway, what people don’t know—and this is just between us, of course—is that Ben’s other sister, Georgina…well, she tried to commit suicide that very same day. Noah stopped her, or saved her, or something along those lines. I don’t know all the details from that night. All I know is that he came home covered in blood and he hasn’t been the same since. So Georgina went away to some women’s group home, some place that is supposed to help with stuff like that, and now she’s back—as of this week, actually. And now Noah is acting weirder than ever. I was really worried about him, until I realized that there must be some feelings going on there. He talks about Georgina a lot and he never did before. Now that she’s home, I’m waiting to see how it plays out, if my theory is correct.”

Holy shit. The air became trapped in my lungs. I never knew Georgina had tried to commit suicide. She’d been missing from school for the last few months before graduation and she’d never walked on graduation day. Her name was on the list of students accepted into Luke University, though, same as mine, so I’d assumed she was being homeschooled because she was grieving, the same way I’d missed that first month after Ben’s death. No one had mentioned a suicide attempt. The way rumors normally spread at our school…that meant someone had done a really good job at keeping that information to themselves.

Tears burned behind my eyes. I felt for Georgina. I knew her pain all too well. Rhett was probably wrong about a romance between Georgina and Noah. She’d been dating Logan Tyler since freshman year. They were the forever type of couple. Or at least that was how they’d always seemed from afar.

“Earlier you said you lost someone,” Rhett whispered gently, making my heart instantly go numb inside my body. “That you were trying to get over someone and that you sought me out to help you feel better. I didn’t connect the dots before. But was that person Ben?”

I let out a gasp.

How had he figured that out? He wasn’t supposed to know that. Shit.

“Yes,” I said, because now tears were running from my eyes and I couldn’t even begin to control them. “Yes.”

He said nothing else. Only held me. He held me as I cried and until I finally drifted into some strange sort of half-sleep. When morning came, I had to get away. I left before he woke up. I didn’t have my car here, or even my panties, but I snuck out his front door and started walking.

Then, ultimately, I had to call John to come pick me up.