Countermeasure (29 page)

A sour tone colored Cassandra’s voice. “Yeah. Look where it got me last time. You said the same thing before and all I got out of it was a boatload of regret.”

Jessica exhaled a deep breath at hearing the reference to their discussion about Nathan. “I know Cassie, but not everyone is like Nate. Your gut told you not to do it and I still pushed. I’m sorry for that. I just wanted to see you happy for a change.”

“Maybe this time it will be the same. How can I tell it’ll be any different?”

“If I were there right now I would be kicking your ass, Cassie. By the simple fact that you are even talking to me about this, you already know it’s different. You don’t want to miss out on a good thing. What if he’s the one? If you don’t try, you’ll never know. Search your heart. Take a chance,” Jessica urged her.

“I hear you, Jessie. I will. I need to go. I’ll check in again soon.”

“You better, I’m anxious to hear more about this nonexistent guy.”

Cassandra disconnected the call, but didn’t feel any closer to an answer. Maybe Jessica was right. Once again she was overthinking it. Dread at the thought it would end as it had with Nathan squeezed her gut. Trevor attracted her like no other. Maybe that was a sign things would be different with him. Was she ready to take a chance?

The vision of him standing in just his jeans, laying his feelings on the line, pierced her heart. With a deep breath, Cassandra reached a decision and quickly finished dressing. Crossing the hall, she knocked on his door. There was no answer. When she knocked again and still received no answer, she wondered if he had fallen asleep. Emboldened by Jessica’s words of encouragement, she used her keycard to enter the room. The room was empty. Disappointed, Cassandra turned to leave and saw a note by her computer:
At the bar. T.

What if he changed his mind?
She wanted to kick herself for being such a chicken earlier. Jessica’s words pushed her to find out for sure.

“One last chance,” she whispered, scrunching the note in her hand.

Cassandra found Trevor sitting alone at the bar. He looked lost in thought, staring at the half-empty glass of whiskey.

“Hey,” she greeted him hesitantly.

Trevor stiffened visibly at the sound of her voice. At first, Cassandra thought he would ignore her. But then he turned on his stool and studied her for a little while before blurting out, “Sorry if I was too forward upstairs. I didn’t mean to…”

“It’s okay, Trevor,” she interrupted, lifting a hand to wave off his apology. “Nothing to be sorry about.”

They stared at each other for a long time, searching, trying to read each other’s feelings. An awkward silence filled the space between them. Cassandra’s heart sank when he didn’t say anything. Losing her nerve, she turned to leave. “I should go….”

He reached out and caught her hand firmly in his to stop her. “I meant what I said.”

He must have sensed her indecision, because he took a firmer grip on her hand and studied her closely as if to gauge her reaction. His thumb played across the back of her hand. It made her heart pound like a drum in her chest, and yet, at the same time, soothed her nerves. His touch reminded her of others they had shared that night and the searing kisses he had given her. At that moment, everything fell into place. Cassandra understood what Jessica was trying to tell her. She wanted it all.

“Come upstairs with me, Cassie.” His voice was deep, full of promises she wanted him to keep. His meaning was clearly defined by the way he caressed her hand, sending shivers down her spine, and by how his stormy eyes held hers.

His words had a familiar ring to them and doubt clouded her heart when she realized why—Trevor’s words where the exact words Nathan had spoken at dinner the evening she had met him at his hotel. That night she had only experienced indifference on hearing them. This time it was different. Trevor’s simple request caused absolute turbulence in her emotions, in a way Nathan’s never had.

Cassandra had long built a barricade around her emotions to avoid any deep-seated commitments. Although she had been satisfied in the past, she had never been truly fulfilled or whole. This time, with Trevor, the barricade had collapsed. A single look from him obliterated all past relationships from her memory. His touch, his simple light caress, caused havoc in her mind. Her lungs labored and her thoughts continued to swirl until she heard Jessica’s words in her ear again—
Search your heart. Take a chance
.

In that moment, Cassandra knew she had been a fool. It had been in front of her all this time. She knew she could no longer ignore what her heart had known all along. She took a leap of faith. Squeezing his hand with hers, she looked him in the eye and said softly, “Yes.”

Trevor’s heart pounded hard in
his chest as he walked Cassandra from the bar. As they got off the elevator out onto their floor, he glanced at her and down at their clasped hands to reassure himself it wasn’t a dream. His pulse raged in his ears as they approached the door of her room, suddenly afraid she would have second thoughts and say something like, “I don’t think we should….”

He breathed a silent sigh of relief when she followed him past her door toward his without any hesitation. As soon as the door clicked closed behind them, they were transported to another world where nothing existed but the two of them. He cupped the nape of her neck and pulled her closer to him.

“Cassandra,” he whispered as their lips met. With a groan, he quickly captured her mouth with his in a deep, wet kiss. Holding her to him, his tongue thrust forward to swirl along hers, and she kissed him back just as deeply until they both needed more than the sweet taste of each other’s mouths.

Before he became completely lost in the whirlwind of desire, he gently broke the kiss. At her questioning look, he simply stated, “I don’t have any condoms with me. I never planned on… this…us.”

“I wouldn’t have been impressed if you did,” she commented bluntly. Standing on tiptoe, she gave him a small smile and kissed him hard on the lips, saying, “We’re okay.”

Her words sent a shiver of anticipation down his spine as he claimed her lips again in a burning kiss and gently eased her backward into the room.

Breathing hard, they parted and undressed, watching each other intently. His eyes were captured by the texture of her skin again, and he looked forward to finally proving to himself that it would feel as silky under his fingers as he so often imagined.

His breath hitched when Cassandra held his gaze while she unhooked her bra and let it fall to the floor before moving on to the button of her jeans. Trevor’s mouth went dry. Her breasts were perfect. No other word could describe them. His body, already awakened by the kissing and quick touching, twitched as if engaging into first gear.

The sound of her zipper being undone snapped him out of his daze. He quickly pulled his t-shirt off over his head and tossed it in the corner, and then proceeded to remove his jeans. His eyes were drawn to her again when she pushed hers off her hips and down her shapely legs. Finally, they stood before each other fully naked in the soft glow of the hotel room’s light. Trevor let his eyes caress her, just as they had when he had watched her sleep in his bed. A smile filled his eyes at the flush that crept up her neck and colored her cheeks.

Cassandra’s heart slammed against her chest when her eyes reached his after her initial perusal of his body had ended. She blushed on realizing he had been watching her take in her fill. From under lowered lids, she eyed his chest again; the memory she had of him semi-undressed did not give justice to the full display in front of her. Nicely formed muscles showed he wasn’t a body-building nut, but someone with a healthy, active lifestyle. His chest tapered down attractively to his hips, its ridges and valleys making her pulse accelerate a notch. Lowering her eyes further, she blushed even deeper at the evidence of his desire for her. The view and the anticipation of what was to come sucked the air from her lungs. A twinge of desire hit her hard, its heat flashing and spreading through her body until it pooled low between her thighs, making her instantly wet.

As if reading her mind, Trevor moved forward and took her in his arms again. “I’ve dreamed of this moment for a while now,” he whispered in her ear before sweeping her off her feet, into his arms, and carrying her to his bed.

He set her in the middle of it and stretched out beside her on his side, facing her. Slowly he began a sensual assault on her—kissing and caressing her softly until she thought her heart was going to seize in her chest. Her fingers flowed over his body, feather touches caressing across his shoulder, along his chest, and lower still to his stomach, leaving a trail goose bumps in their wake. His soft groan at her touch thrilled her and made her bolder with a need to give him pleasure in the same measure as he was already giving her. She slid her hand even further down and wrapped her fingers around his cock.

Trevor’s body jerked. “Damn it Cassie, hold on,” he breathed harshly, resting his forehead against hers and shifted his hips away to stop her from touching him. “If you continue to touch me like that I won’t be able to hold back much longer.”

Trevor must have seen the uncertainty in her eyes and the little frown that furrowed her brow at his comment. He leaned back far enough to capture her eyes with his and clarified, “If you touch me like that I won’t be able to hold on for as long as I want to. I want this to last, Cassie. I want this to last a long, long time.”

Trevor’s words soothed her and made her burn deep with the promise in them. Her breath caught when he rolled over her, spread her legs with his knees, adjusted himself between them, and looked straight into her eyes. “I want to taste you so bad it hurts…taste all of you.” He leaned down to kiss her softly on the neck, then at the hollow of her throat, and between her breasts before covering her left nipple with his mouth.

The effect of that act was devastating. Her heartbeat surged under his hot moist mouth and the breath she was holding spilled softly from her. A deep groan reached her ears and she wasn’t sure it was hers or Trevor’s. Her hips moved restlessly and she arched her spine, pressing her body tighter against his mouth, hoping he would keep doing what he was doing for a long time, as promised.

Her skin was much more than what he had ever imagined. The fleeting thought crossed his mind when he took her breast in his mouth, sucked on it gently, and swirled his tongue around the erect nipple. His dreams of this moment paled in comparison to the reality and sweetness of her skin under his lips. He dragged his mouth to her right breast and repeated the same caress before continuing his journey, slowly tracing a path with his tongue down her stomach, over her mound, and finally to his target.

When he placed a gentle kiss on her sex, Cassandra moaned softly, arching her back off the bed while fisting the sheets beside her. He chuckled at the sight, proof that she enjoyed his touch. He upped his bid by spreading her folds and kissing her more intimately, extracting another deep, slow moan from her lips. Her taste was intoxicating and he knew, at the first sampling, he was totally and completely addicted to it. One taste was all it took to make him want her even more than he already did. She was blurring his mind and, for the first time in his life, he didn’t care, he embraced it.

The feel of his tongue burying inside her caused Cassandra to feel like she had splintered into a million pieces. His gentle licks and laps blinded her to everything but the feelings and emotions he generated with his mouth, his lips, his tongue. None of her previous sexual encounters had been this vivid, explosive, or fulfilling, and she sensed that this was only the beginning.

His touch grew into a crescendo and, when her body contracted, she reached for his head, combed her fingers through his hair, and held him tightly to her.
If he stops I’ll die,
she thought, and gasped when he gently slid a finger, then two, inside her. She was hurled toward release, coming loudly as he held her tight and continued to press his fingers inside her and suck her hard, riding it out with her.

Cassandra continued to surrender to the mind-numbing sensations pulsing through her. After a few moments, she finally opened her eyes and found Trevor hovering over her, his wicked smile playing on his lips. “Was that as good for you as it was for me?”

His little show of humor at her wantonness made her blush, but she replied without missing a beat, “Are all geeks as good as you?”

Trevor burst out laughing at her play on a quote from
Revenge of the Nerds
. Cassandra was shocked at their comfortable banter. Without a second thought, she pulled Trevor down and kissed him. Tasting herself in his mouth for the first time sent another jolt of desire through her, and she undulated her body against his while at the same time spreading her legs to cradle him and accommodate his weight. She rocked her hips, urging him to give her more, and could feel the crown of his cock rubbing against her slick folds.