Hope for Her (Hope #1) (16 page)

Chapter Nineteen

Joshua Elijah Griffin, IV

When Carrington returned from her walk, she seemed different, but I kept quiet. I had learned myself that those walks had a way of changing a person's perspective on life—best to let the person work it out on their own.

I stood in the kitchen making breakfast when Carrington walked back in from the bedroom. She pulled on one of my sweatshirts. I wanted her right then and there, but I waited and watched.

"You hungry?" I asked.

"Yes, starving."

She sat on a barstool at the counter and watched me with her nose all wrinkled in the cutest manner. I wanted to tell her that I loved her like this, when it was easy and relaxed. We needed more moments like this.

I put the food on two plates and set them on the counter next to her. I grabbed some orange juice from the refrigerator and sat on the stool next to her.

Carrington took a huge fork full of the eggs and potatoes. My stomach growled watching her eat.

"This is amazing." She took another bite, and bliss showed bright behind her eyes.

"You like it?"

"Umm hmm. Yummy."

We ate and watching her enjoy it made me happy. I could watch her smile all day. It was that simple. I wanted to hang out with her like this for the rest of my life.

"I didn't know you knew how to cook."

"There's a lot you don't know about me."

"Oh, yeah, like what else. Tell me something I don't know. Shock me."

The sweetness tinged with sexiness twinkled the side of her eyes.

I stood up and moved over to stand between her legs.

"You have no idea how much I want you right now." I took her ankle and rubbed it across the front of my shorts.

Her sexy grin told me what I needed to know. She wanted me. The way she looked, she never hid it.

My girl was turned on.

"I could have guessed that. Tell me something else," she said, replacing her foot with the back of her hand.

"Okay, do you know how fucking sexy you are?"

"Yeah, I know that, too."

"Okay, I have something else to tell you." I grabbed her legs and wrapped them around my waist. "Come here."

I crashed into her; my waist, my chest, my lips all fused into her, and just like that, we connected again.

I carried her over to the couch and laid her down, but she pushed me down beside her and crawled on my lap, pressing into me and kissing me deep and hard. She suffocated me with her lips. She grabbed my arms and pressed them down to my side as she ground herself into my lap. When I tried to touch her, she removed my hands and put them back at my side.

I left them there and sat back to see what she would do next. She slid off my lap and kneeled on the floor in front of me.

Her adorable expression made me blush. Sexually, we did a lot together, but she'd never gone down on me. I never asked, and she never offered. I waited to see how she would proceed, curious and kind of amused.

She reached into my pants, and I tried to stop myself from reacting. I must have scared her, because she sat back on her heels in frustration.

I took a deep breath, and she did the same; then she reached into my waistband again. She moved her hand up and down. Her eyes crinkled up as she studied me. I grew harder from her touch, but I wanted more.

Her grip firmed as she moved it up and down. My head swarmed, and I held my breath. I liked having her hand on me. Her adorable brown eyes widened and then she went for it. She kissed it. I barely felt it but felt it enough to let go of the breath.

She took me in her mouth, a little at first, then more and more. I wasn't huge by any means, but more than her inexperienced lips had experienced. I wanted to stay right where I was and watch her all day, but I wanted inside of her, too. She stroked and sucked at the same time, her technique perfect.

She must have Googled it.

She watched me. Measured my enjoyment, and I made sure to give her all the positive reinforcement I could manage. I wanted to make sure she enjoyed it too. People who enjoy an experience tend to want to repeat the experience over and over again.

"Oh, baby, that feels so good," I said. I leaned over and as I kissed her, I pushed her back down on the floor while sliding her shorts down. I touched her, and she sighed. I plunged into her, and she moaned and arched her back. I had perfect access to her chest, and I tasted one breast while massaging the other. She wiggled underneath me, and I took my other free hand and clamped down on her hip. She screamed, and I liked the sound. I did the same with my other hand and held her hips in place while I pounded into her. She whimpered every time I connected. Then her body shuddered. I was done. She squeezed the life out of me. I collapsed on top of her and she remained quiet and still.

Good girl.

***

Carrington Olivia Butler

I know giving Josh a blowjob and then screwing his brains out on the living room floor, didn't correspond with a let's slow things down mentality, but lust blinded me.

I got off on his power trip, but it freaked me out because I had no clue why.

He cleaned up the condo, we got dressed, and headed back to campus after my little performance on the couch. I didn't know what came over me. The way he looked at me got me every time.

We bonded over sex in a unique way. Different than what my friends experienced. None of them were in a relationship like this. I convinced myself the intimacy Josh and I shared was unique and healthy.

The appreciative expression and blissed out look on his face made me giggle.

Great sex made me forget the challenging parts of our relationship. But I wanted to talk to him about it.

"Carrington," he dragged me out of my head. "What are you thinking about so intently?"

"Oh, nothing."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." I pulled my legs under me in the seat and rested my back against the car door. "How long until we get back to school?"

"About three hours."

I closed my eyes and tightened them. When I opened them, Josh reached out and squeezed my calf.

"Hey, I was thinking, why don't we go somewhere for winter break."

"What do you mean?"

"Like, take a trip. Spend Christmas in New York or maybe go someplace warm."

I adjusted in my seat and faced forward.

"I can't. I have to go home for Christmas."

"To Texas."

"Yeah."

"Well, that's cool, too. When did you want to leave?"

"You can't come with me," I said and snorted, but covered my mouth when I realized how harsh I sounded. His head dropped, and he placed his hands in the ten and two positions on the steering wheel.

Sex, not too intimate, but meeting my parents, way too personal.

"I'm sorry, Josh. I'm not comfortable having you come home with me. Meeting my parents. It's too soon, and it would freak them out. Especially my brother."

"Sure. Whatever."

"I didn't mean to hurt your feelings; I'm not like that with my parents. Inviting someone home to meet them is the equivalent to an engagement. You don't want to marry me." I giggled but stopped when his expression changed. His eyes narrowed and his shoulders inched up to his ears. I needed to turn this around or risk getting kicked out the car.

"Josh?" his expression stuck on pissed.

He ignored me.

"Josh?"

"What?" He turned so fast, I jumped as far as my seat would allow in his small sports car.

"It's not you. It doesn't have anything to do with you."

"You don't want me to meet your parents. You don't want your parents to know about me."

"Josh, you're taking this the wrong way."

"How else am I supposed to take it? Do your parents even know about me?"

"My family isn't like yours. We aren't close. We don't share every part of our lives." 

"Well, nice to see where I rank."

"You are taking this way too personal."

"How else am I supposed to take it?"

"I don't want my family to get the wrong idea about us."

I needed to stop talking, or at least think before I spoke.

His face turned red, and his eyes darted from me and back to the road.

"Jesus Carrington, what are we doing here? Are we together or not? After last night, I thought we were moving toward something."

"We are. I do want to be with you, and we are building something, but it doesn't mean we have to skip all the steps in-between."

"Steps? What are you talking about steps?"

"Josh, listen to me carefully. I like you. I enjoy being with you. I've never been with anyone like you, but even you have to admit, our relationship up to this point has been . . . intense."

"Intense?"

"Yeah, and I want to slow down a little bit. Not take everything so serious all the time. Let's have some fun. We should be enjoying our romance, not freaking out over all these things that in the long run won't mean a thing."

I watched him contemplate my words, hoped he would draw a good conclusion, but doubted it. His all or nothing attitude hated contradiction, but I pushed on and held firm.

"Slow down," Josh said under his breath.

"Josh."

"No, it's fine. Don't worry about it." Josh turned the volume up on the radio; his way of saying the conversation was over.

I stared out the window. We passed a sign,
Tallahassee 68 miles
. This was going to be the longest sixty-eight miles of my life.

We pulled into campus and Josh pulled up in front of my dorm. I made a point of taking a moment to gather my stuff together and waited for him to say something.

When it appeared he had nothing else to say, I let out a sigh and opened the door. I grabbed my bag out of the back of the car and headed up the walkway to my dorm.

I heard him get out of the car, but I walked away without looking back.

I made it to the top of the stairs, and against my better judgment, I turned around. Josh followed and stood at the bottom of the stairs. He waited for me to speak first.

I dropped my bags and walked back down.

We stood face to face staring into each other's eyes. We were the same height, but he shrunk under my gaze. I didn't want to hurt him.

I leaned in and pressed my lips to the corner of his mouth, a half kiss, half peck on the cheek. I pulled away a little, and he adjusted his face and placed his lips on mine with a mix of hesitancy and urgency. He wanted positive reinforcement, like a puppy. I loved puppies, so I gave in to him.

I pulled him closer by grabbing the bottom of his shirt. He placed his hands on the side of my face. His tension increased as his hand squeezed my face and his hard lips pressed against mine. I panicked for a minute, as the pressure increased, but then he let go. He smiled at me and turned and walked away.

"I'll see you tomorrow."

I headed back up the stairs and into the building, not sure what happened or what changed his mood.

Chapter Twenty

Carrington Olivia Butler

When we returned to campus, things fell back into our old routine. Josh met me outside of my dorm in the morning and walked me back to my dorm at night. Not counting him showing up outside of my classes or the library or any other place I happened to go then yeah, back to normal.

If he wasn't with me, he stalked me—if you can be stalked by your boyfriend.

We avoided the subject of winter break, but I half expected him to show up in Dallas uninvited.

Whenever I protested about our being together all the time he would say, "Isn't a boyfriend supposed to spend time with his girlfriend?"

He made sense.

He had this way of sensing when he grew close to wearing out his welcome or getting a little too smothering, and he would disappear. When I got right to my boiling point and ready to let him have it, he removed himself from the situation, and it left me with six to ten hours of alone time.

I wonder where he acquired this skill.

The day before my first exam, I headed back to the dorm surprised to not see Josh waiting on the steps. As the elevator opened on my floor, Josh stood holding court in the student lounge. I caught him in mid-sentence. He stopped talking as soon as he saw my face. Melinda and Jessica sat in the middle of the group laughing and encouraged him to continue.

I turned around and walked back to the elevators and headed downstairs.

Thank God, he didn't follow me.

I walked over to the library, laughing at the irony of my boyfriend's name on the side of the building. I couldn’t get away from him if I tried.

Students occupied every table in the place, but my favorite study area appeared empty. I looked over at the spot where I first met Jackson. It was empty, too. I sat down with my back to the door and got to work. I took a few deep breaths and calmed down enough to focus on my calculus review.

After an hour, someone entered the room, but they stopped inside the door and then continued. My stomach did a somersault. I thought he would leave me alone tonight.

"I'm not in the mood tonight, J—" I said as I turned around, but stopped when I saw Jackson standing in the center of the room.

He paused when I turned around. He appeared bigger than I remembered. He wore black jeans and an FSU sweatshirt. I could make out the contours of his chest and arms through the sweatshirt.

Damn.

He smirked and continued to the table.

"I'm not in the mood either, so maybe we could just study together."

My stomach fluttered, and I narrowed my eyes, shaking my head slightly.

"Sorry, stupid joke,” he said.

"No, I'm . . . surprised to see you."

"You thought I was someone else?"

"Hoped you weren't someone else is more like it," I said and shook my head. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that."

"Hey, I get it. He's my best friend, and I understand. He can be a lot to take sometimes."