A Perfect Mess (18 page)

I trembled with the effort it took to let her kiss me. I knew about that kind of need, that kind of desperation. I wanted her to be in control because I was so afraid I would lose mine. I lived for this kind of pleasure. Writing for me was an orgasm of the mind. Good food fed not only hunger but the taste for the delectable. The high I got from running was not just about honing my body, but making my nerves and muscles sing. Music was a gift, a sound bite of pure glory for the ears. And, Aubree, a feast for the eyes, her beauty a knife that drove into my heart and stayed embedded there. It hurt so fucking good. I’d wanted her for so long that the reality of having her on top of me, kissing me like there was no tomorrow, seemed like a dream.

But I knew it wasn’t. It was real, but I also could tell Aubree was still afraid of showing me who she really was, of revealing everything. She liked her math. It cocooned her in a safe monastery of reason, where silence was not just golden, but necessary. The walls made sense, the isolation, although it hurt, also protected her. I might not know math, but I knew people. I knew how to use characters to tell my stories, how to manipulate and cajole. I was so damn good at it. Everyone told me how much I was like my father, the con artist.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

I suddenly had second thoughts. Pushed that wave of pain away with monumental force, denying that I would do anything like that. But it whispered to me, saying that it was there and I couldn’t outrun it, wall myself away from it, or hide from it. But I’d rather have died right there, right then, than hurt Aubree in any way. This was all new for me. I could learn from it, change that future negative path. I could do it with her.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

She made a soft, aching sound in her throat, as if she just couldn’t get enough of me. Emotion flooded my chest. All those days and nights I’d thought about her mirrored that aching sound she’d made. I wanted to see beneath her beautiful. I wanted her to show me who she was. I couldn’t accept anything less.

She was so out of my league, but that had never scared me.

She straddled me then, and I cried out against her mouth. She was pulling at her shirt, trying to get it over her head. The pressure against my dick was enormous, and for the first time in my life I wasn’t sure I could hold onto my cargo.

“Booker,” she said, her voice out of control and a little desperate. I rolled her beneath me and grabbed her hands. She stilled instantly and looked up at me with her wide green eyes. “Whoa, sugar.” My voice wavered with a hoarse rasp. “Breathe, babe. Breathe for me.”

She took some quick breaths in, but they were fast. “That was crazy, right? You freaking blew my mind and almost my payload.”

She laughed. It was spontaneous, joyous and beautiful, and came from deep inside her. She threw her arms around my neck, hugging me so tight. I buried my face into the amazing hollow of her neck and shoulder.

“Booker, you’re like a mind sculptor. You make me into something wild and wonderful. Something real.”

“Sugar, you are real.

“Kiss me, Booker.”

I didn’t need her to tell me again. I had what I needed to protect her in my jeans pocket. But it had to be slow, so that she would have the maximum amount of pleasure.

“I sometimes wished I’d done it. Just to get that part over with so you wouldn’t have to feel guilty.”

“Guilty. Ha! I laugh in the face of guilt. I deflower virgins at least once a week.”

Her face paled.

“No, wait. I’m kidding. Totally kidding.”

“I wouldn’t have been a virgin if you hadn’t…”

“That’s in the past, Aubree. We got through it and we moved on.”

“Did we?”

“I’ve learned from experience that’s it’s the best thing to do.”

“Sure. I also have learned from experience that compartments work really well. Always another box to fill. So we’re alike, there. Both of us use distance.”

I kissed her softly, her pain becoming my pain.

“You feel good,” she whispered. “So solid. So
here
. Sometimes I feel like I could disappear and no one would miss me, like a pretty, perfectly formed helium balloon floating away until it vanishes.”

“I would miss you,” I murmured, my voice a hoarse rasp.

She closed her eyes, her hand automatically sliding over my heart. I’m not sure if she did that on purpose, or if it was purely reflex.

“You would. I know that. It’s all that kept me going, knowing that you probably missed me. And my aunt. I think she would miss me, too.”

“She did miss you.”

She pressed against my chest, then did tiny little circles on my skin with the pads of her fingers. “How did you know that? What exactly is my aunt to you?”

“She’s my editor.”

Her eyes softened. “Really. My aunt?”

“Yes,” I could see she was calming down, the panic of losing control diminishing. “I happened to run into her in the bookstore in town. She was looking for a book on Sherman.”

“What? That’s blasphemy,” she whispered.

“Ah, she told me your family’s deep, dark secret.”

“She did not.”

“Yes, I know about
that
Sherman. The Yank who marched through Georgia and incited hatred throughout the Confederacy shares an ancestry with good Southern stock.”

“That connection to Sherman has
always
been hush-hush. I treated it as a big joke, thinking that mentioning it was equivalent to a prim Southern belle saying the eff word at a lady’s garden party.”

“Yeah, that would be in bad taste. But you would never do that.”

“Oh, no. I adhere to the rules of decorum.”

“We got to talking. She weaseled the information out of me about the ‘novels’ I had on my computer. She badgered me until I showed them to her. Then she told me that we were going to self-publish them. She helped me with the first book. She made it infinitely better, then the second, then third. I owe my success to your aunt.”

“You owe your success to yourself.”

“That’s exactly what your Aunt Lottie said.”

“She was right.”

“Hey, don’t tell me I’m wrong. I know what I know.”

“You can believe what you want, but it’s the truth, huckleberry.”

“What did you just call me?”

She snorted.

“That’s reserved for me and my brothers. You’re going to have to pay the toll for using that on me.”

“Oh, no. I’m not paying no damn huckleberry toll…huckleberry.”

Chapter Nine

Aubree

I didn’t know how he kept doing it, but he’d soothed me. I had been right on the edge of panic.

He smiled wickedly, looking so sinfully sexy with the stubble coating his jaw, his blue eyes bright on me with challenge. He dug his fingers into my sides and I screeched. He laughed. “Oh, boy, the girl is ticklish.”

“That’s right. No.” I grabbed his hand, but Booker was strong. That hard curve of biceps muscle wasn’t just for show.

I tried to twist away from him, but he buried his face in my neck and blew a raspberry against my skin, which only made me laugh harder.

I arched and pressed my breasts against the hard wall of his chest.

And things got serious again real fast.

He stilled. He didn’t say anything, but somehow got closer in his stillness. He bent his head down to mine and his other hand cupped my breast. I groaned into his mouth. Oh, god, he knew how to kiss. He played with my mouth, stealing every ounce of pleasure. I opened my mouth on his and just breathed him in, tongues sliding, lips pressing. With everything about him so hard, the inside of his mouth was like the softest velvet…moist. He was as addictive as dark chocolate, something rich, dark…sensually intense.

His hand was hot on me, taking me past “Oh, god, is this happening?” to “Please, god, don’t ever let him stop.”

I wanted him, desperately. I wanted everything he had, what he could give me, and I was willing to expose my heart to get it.

And that’s exactly what I had on the line. Nothing less. I knew him, knew myself with him. No meeting him half-way. I had to be all in. I would end up giving him everything, and he would take it all and then some, and when it was over, what would I be left with—nothing? How could that be? Where would all this wonderful go?

Between our bodies, I felt him unbuckle his belt, and a whole new level of thrill went through me, along with a dose of anxiety. I couldn’t regret that he was going to be the first man I’d ever been with. I couldn’t. I just suspected he was going to spoil me young. I’d want all men to be like him. And I suspected I was going to be sorely disappointed later.

I now wished when he had asked me that I’d had the courage to tell him what he wanted to know about why I trusted him in high school, that I’d had the courage to take a stand. Something I didn’t seem to have. Guilt filtered through me along with his soft touch. They seemed to mingle and coalesce into something totally forbidden, decadent.

I felt him slide his zipper open, and I dragged my mouth from his. Our eyes met in the dark. His gaze was edgy. His hand slipped down to my bare leg and he took his time traveling the length of it. His hand slid up between my legs, and all I could do was watch his face—so beautiful, his hair shaggy silk, his eyes so deep-set, so thickly lashed, so intensely focused on me. How…how had I missed this in high school? How had I not known?

I gasped when he reached my underwear.

“Mmmmm, pretty lace. You are so wet for me and I’m so hard for you, Aubree. So freaking hard. Open for me.”

After the bleacher incident, there hadn’t been a day that went by that I hadn’t fantasized about him like this. All bare and muscled. That irresistible power right there for my hands to touch and explore, to have and to hold.

What I saw that day had touched me to the deepest part of my being. I was never the same.

He pushed aside my panties, and I was powerless to control my legs as they widened. He touched me then, his fingers so sure, so unerring, and pure, sweet pleasure poured into me. With a soft gasp, I brought my mouth back to his, moving against him, my pelvis pressing into his hand.

He circled me with his thumb, and pleasure exploded in a throbbing pulse so intense I lost my reason.

“
Booker
…” I sighed, loving what he was doing to me, loving being close to him, pressed beneath him in this exquisite place.

I tunneled my fingers up through his hair, reveling in the sheer pleasure of being free to finally,
finally
touch him like I’ve wanted to do for so long. I held him for my kiss, for a hundred kisses, and then I reached down and grasped the edge of the pretty blouse Verity had given me.

My phone rang and I recognized it immediately. I stilled against him, disappointment and worry crashing through me. I scrambled out from under him and reached for my purse. “That’s the hospital ring. I’ve got to get it.”

He flipped over and lay back, his jeans unzipped, revealing all his glory. He covered his face, his chest heaving, his muscles in stark relief. I could see the bulge straining against his underwear.

Oh, God, Aunt Lottie. Please, God.

“Hello.”

“Miss Walker?”

“Dr. Prichard. My aunt!”

“Yes, but not to worry. She’s awake.”

“What? She is?” I closed my eyes, tears pricking the backs of them. Relief ran through me in a concussive wave and I sagged against the cushions. Booker got on his hands and knees and scooted over to me.

“Tell him you’ll be right there,” he whispered in my ear, sending goose bumps over my skin and puckering my aching nipples even further.

“We’ll be right there. Thank you so much!”

I hung up and turned to him. “She’s awake.”

“That is the best news.”

“Yes. I’m sorry about…”

He took my mouth in a soft, tender kiss, that brushing and sliding that I loved so much. “Hush, sugar. It’ll happen in its own time.”

“Well, just for the record, I’m really disappointed.”

He nodded. “Do you want me to drive you?”

My self-control was shot. “Yes, please.”

“We can take your car. I won’t have a problem getting back home.”