Second Opinion (17 page)

My brain wasn’t computing how this had happened. Twenty-four hours ago, she’d been the woman in my past who had broken my heart. But now she was the woman who stood in front of me, asking me to try again.

I grabbed myself a beer to calm my nerves, and I poured Rachelle a glass of wine. She set it down on the counter and stalked her way over to me.

“Can we stop the charade?” Her voice was firm.

“What charade?” I was truly confused.

“You’re acting like we’re on a date when we both know this is going straight to the bedroom. Grant, you don’t have to put on a show for me. I’m a sure thing.”

She had always known how to take control of a situation, and clearly that hadn’t changed.

“So you want me to just take you to the bedroom with no preamble?”

“I’ve only got a week. I don’t want to waste time with silly formalities.”

I chuckled, chugged down half of my beer, and set my bottle on the counter.

She took two steps closer to me and twined her arms around my neck.

It was familiar. This was all I had wanted for the past three years.

You know how they say you don’t know what you have until it’s gone?

That’s not true.

I didn’t know what I had been missing until she came back into my life.

I knew what I had, and I knew what it was like when she was gone. But having her in my arms again brought back memories of the past I’d somehow buried.

While I’d always put her on a pedestal and compared every single woman I’d ever met to her, I hadn’t realized how much I had loved her and how much I had missed her until I wrapped my arms around her waist and breathed her in.

It was her clean vanilla scent that brought back the feelings I’d managed to bury.

We clung to each other for a few beats. I didn’t want to let her go any more than she wanted to be let go.

Maybe it was all wrong. Maybe she didn’t deserve a second chance.

But it felt right, and in that moment, that was all that mattered.

I lowered my lips to hers because I couldn’t hold her in my arms and breathe in her scent without kissing her.

And when our lips reunited, it was like no time had passed.

I forgot about the past and could suddenly only focus on the possibilities of the future.

I tended to be a fairly forgiving person, the type of person who would easily forget past transgressions in favor of the future. And as her soft lips met mine, everything bad from the past was erased. I could only remember the good, the reasons why she’d been on a pedestal for so long.

And when her mouth opened to mine, I was definitely a goner.

I was as in love with her as I had been the day I had asked her to marry me.

Maybe even more.

Time would tell, but that one perfect kiss brought back everything she had meant to me.

She sucked my tongue into her mouth, controlling the kiss. Her arms tightened around me, and I yanked her body as close against me as I could. I wanted to be inside of her, and as our already hot kiss inexplicably intensified, I knew it wouldn’t be long.

She backed away from me, and my eyes slowly opened to take in the beauty that stood before me.

Her face was flushed. She stood about six inches shorter than me, and her eyes were so dark and full of lust that they were almost black.

She was wearing a white shirt and jeans. She tore the shirt off over her head and threw it on the floor, and then she unhooked her sexy nude colored bra and tossed it next to her shirt.

The most flawless breasts stood at attention. Her nipples puckered toward me, and I couldn’t wait to feel the perfect buds against my tongue. I stared at her body. She was petite, but she carried soft curves that made her look like a woman.

The only word to describe her was
perfection
. 

I pulled my shirt over my head and tossed it on the floor as well.

It was her turn to stare.

She gaped. She ogled. She swooned.

“Someone’s been working out,” she said, running her fingertips across the defined muscles in my abdomen.

I’d always been in fairly good shape, and I had always enjoyed athletics. But in the past three years, I’d kicked up my gym time quite a bit. I found it kept my mind off of the very woman who stood before me, and it had quite a few other benefits as well.

She attacked.

She lunged for me, jumping onto me and locking her legs around my waist. My mouth collided with hers. I grabbed her under her ass to help her balance, and I carried her over to my couch. We would never make it to my bedroom.

I sat, and she was straddling me as we continued kissing each other as if our oxygen would be depleted if we had to disconnect.

I cupped her breast, and she pulled back from my mouth, leaning her head back with her eyes closed. A loud moan escaped her parted lips.

I could stare at her all night in that exact pose. She was gorgeous.

I leaned forward and finally took one of her nipples between my lips. I heard another encouraging moan, so I took her nipple between my teeth before soothing it with my tongue.

“Oh God,” she yelled out.

I grinned against her skin. “The name’s Grant, but you can call me whatever you want.”

“Get out of your fucking clothes,” she demanded.

She hadn’t changed at all in the three years since I’d last seen her.

She lifted off of me and stripped out of her jeans. She stood in my family room in front of me in silky panties that matched the bra she’d thrown somewhere in my kitchen.

I stood and pulled my jeans down with my boxers in one motion.

She grinned, her eyes on my cock. “God, I’ve missed this,” she said. She took a step toward me and then knelt in front of me.

Oh God. I wasn’t ready for this.

She took my dick in her hand and then went to work with her mouth. She started by gently sucking the tip, but then she moved her hand and took my entire length into her mouth. I felt the back of her throat, and so many memories came back. She’d always given the best blow jobs I’d ever had, but somehow time had made her even better at them.

I immediately banished the thought from my mind that it was because of some other guy.

I was getting a blow job, for Christ’s sake. It had been three years. I was stupid to think she hadn’t been with some other guy during our time apart.

I wasn’t strong enough to stop her from what she was doing. Not when she was doing it so damn well.

I pushed my hips toward her mouth, wanting her to hold all of me in her mouth for the rest of my life, and then I pulled back completely out of her mouth. I needed to see her. I needed to look in her eyes and I needed to know this was about more than just the fantastic sex we’d always shared.

I pulled her up toward me and kissed her again after I saw the lust in her eyes. And then I led her back over to the couch, sat, waited for her to take off her panties, and pulled her down on top of me.

We both stilled the moment my dick entered her body. Her eyes were hot and intense on mine, and every stupid concern I’d had flew immediately out the window as our bodies moved into an old groove.

It was cliché to think it, but it really was like riding a bicycle.

All of the feelings I’d ever had for her came rushing back to me as we connected in the most carnal way. 

Our bodies remembered each other, and as we fell into a familiar rhythm we’d missed over our time apart, I knew I’d never find another woman like her.

She leaned back and I sucked her breast into my mouth. She dove headfirst into an intense orgasm, shattering around me as she called out my name.

It was quick, but it was effective.

I continued pumping into her, but she’d warmed me up when she’d wrapped her lips around my cock. It wasn’t long before I felt everything coil up tightly and then I exploded into her.

And the moment our bodies parted, I realized in the intense moments that preceded our encounter, neither of us had considered protection.

I always used protection. Always. Sure, I’d slept around, but I took care of my dick.

I didn’t know this woman anymore. I didn’t know who she slept with or whether she was on birth control. I’d just assumed she would be honest with me if there was any reason why we couldn’t fuck the way we always had.

But she hadn’t said anything, so instead of enjoying the quiet moments in the aftermath of our passionate lovemaking, I was worried about diseases and pregnancy.

Let’s be honest here; that’s what it was. Lovemaking.

I still loved her, and everything I felt from her in our few intimate moments together showed me she still loved me, too.

“Fuck,” I muttered when I lifted her up and pulled out of her. “We didn’t use a condom.”

I didn’t know how to broach the awkward subject, but just like old times again, Rachelle did it for me.

“It’s okay, Grant,” she said softly. “I’m on the pill.”

I nodded and averted my eyes to the floor.

What if I had just knocked her up?

On the one hand—Jesus. That would be bad.

But on the other hand—it would give me everything I had ever wanted with her.

“That’s why it felt so good,” she said. She shifted on my lap, but she was still straddling me.

I glanced up at her and shook my head. “Baby, it felt so good because it was
us
.”

Her eyes softened and she nodded, and then she pressed a gentle kiss to my lips, a stark contrast to everything that had just happened between us.

She got up and headed toward the bathroom, and I cleaned up and put my clothes back on, knowing as we finished that this had been inevitable.

CHAPTER 14

SEVEN YEARS BEFORE THAT

When you’re a male freshman in college, you’re only worried about two things: beer and pussy.

I was no different. I wasn’t worried about making friends; I had a roommate who I’d gone to high school with, and I knew I would find friends easily. I’d never had a problem with that.

I’d never had a problem finding pussy, either.

But beer? That was a little harder to come by. I needed to get my hands on a fake ID.

When I walked into COM105 on the very first day of class, I never thought I’d solve both of my concerns by meeting one girl.

She was older than me; I could tell because she didn’t have the wily look of fear most of the freshmen girls I saw had. She looked worldly and classy. She looked like a woman.

And the second I spotted her, I knew I had to get a piece of her.

I grabbed the seat next to her before the older, muscular guy who had been eyeing her from across the room got the chair. Fuck that. I wasn’t worried about competition; I had enough charm to get her interest, but I had to work quickly.

The professor came in and started the class before I had a chance to introduce myself to the goddess sitting to my left. I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. I was trying not to be obvious, but I was definitely checking her out.

She had dark hair that curled at her chin and eyes that were mysterious and dark. Her skin was bronzed, and she had a natural beauty about her. Plush lips that would look great wrapped around my—

“Grant Carpenter?” The professor was calling my name, but I wasn’t sure why.

“Yeah?”

He glanced up at me with a look of annoyance. “Rachelle Carter?”

The goddess next to me answered, “Here.”

Ah. Attendance. Well fuck me with a pogo stick.

And her name was Rachelle. A beautiful name to fit the COM105 temptress seated beside me.

I glanced over at her. Her eyes met mine, and she smiled.

Holy Jesus.

Her smile made things move around in my pants.

Attendance was taken and the course syllabus was distributed. The professor droned on and on at length about course policies and procedures, and I couldn’t help but tune him out.

There was, however, one thing he said that caught my attention.

“Find a partner for this course. You will be expected to practice speeches with each other, and you will have multiple partner assignments to complete.”

I glanced over at Rachelle, and her eyes met mine.

I shrugged in her direction and raised my eyebrows.

We still hadn’t spoken any words to each other, but a slight nod of her head toward me as her mouth turned up in a smile was all I needed for confirmation.

We were given our first partner assignment, an argumentative speech based on research where we each needed to argue one side of the issue.

We looked at each other. “What do you want our topic to be?” she asked after our professor gave us the green light to find our partners and get to work.

They were the first words she had ever spoken to me.

“I don’t care. Whatever you want.”

“Healthcare reform.” Her voice was calm and firm. It wasn’t a question. That was our topic.

Damn. A girl who knew what she wanted. I’d expected her to be indecisive. Every girl I knew was indecisive, but she came in with ideas and what appeared to be intelligence. She spoke her mind. She was borderline intimidating—a challenge—and I liked that.

Challenge accepted.

We were dismissed, and the two of us headed to the library to start our research. “I’m Rachelle,” she said as we walked toward the campus library.

“Grant,” I said.

She smiled. “What year are you?”

“Freshman.”

She looked momentarily surprised, and I took that as a good sign.

“You?” I asked.

“Junior. I just transferred in from Northern. What’s your major?”

“Engineering.”

“What kind?”

“Civil. I’m looking at Construction Management as a minor. You?”

“Health Science. I want to be a Physician Assistant.”

“Not a doctor?” I asked.

She shook her head. “PAs actually have a lot more freedom than MDs. I want that freedom.”

Sounded good to me. “So, Rachelle, since we’re both new here, how would you like to come to a party with me tonight? I could introduce you to some of my friends.”

“I don’t know, Grant,” she said, hesitating. I loved the way she said my name as I opened the door to the library for her.

“Just come for a little while. It’ll give you a chance to get to know some new people.”

She shrugged. “Alright,” she finally said, giving in.

We found two computers next to one another to start the research process, and that marked the first time I’d ever done homework immediately after class.

I found myself enjoying her company. Sure, I’d initially been attracted to her, but as the afternoon progressed and I started discovering tiny new facets of her personality, I found myself with a new friend.

A sexy new friend, but a new friend nonetheless.

Later that night, I walked over to her dorm to walk her to the party. It was an off-campus party, a place where the beer would be flowing and the music would be loud, and it offered the perfect excuse to get close to her. I’d start the night by lowering her inhibitions with beer and end the night by lowering myself on top of her.

Except that’s not at all how it happened.

I brought her to the party. She had one beer. She started chatting with some guy I didn’t know, and I was cornered by this blonde freshman who hadn’t left me alone since I’d met her at orientation.

I offered Rachelle a walk home, but she declined, happily chatting with the other guy.

I didn’t see her again until we were back in class, and that same feeling of initial attraction hit me once again.

I wanted her, but I guess the feeling wasn’t mutual. She wanted someone older, maybe. Even though I’d surprised her when I had told her I was a freshman, it didn’t matter.

We spent our class time practicing our speeches, making sure we were prepared, and choosing our presentation order for the next class, and then I invited Rachelle to lunch.

That marked the first time we left class and went to lunch, but it was the start of a tradition we’d hold for the remainder of the semester.

She’d singlehandedly become the reason I got the good grades I managed my first semester of college. She was studious, a trait that somehow made her insanely sexy. She was focused on her studies, and dating appeared to be pretty much off limits.

Or maybe she just didn’t want anything more than friendship with me. I wanted more with her, and I flirted with her constantly, but she never gave into my advances despite flirting back.

The guy from the party had taken her on a date or two, she’d told me at lunch, but it hadn’t gone anywhere.

We became very close. She confided in me about her parents’ somewhat recent divorce and how badly it had hurt her sister and her. I told her about my family, too.

I couldn’t get her out of my head, so while I should have been living the life of a college freshman full of testosterone and horniness, I remained basically celibate and manhandled myself like it was going out of style every time I had a quiet moment in my dorm room. I lucked out that my roommate had found himself a girlfriend, and they tended to spend most nights at her place while I fantasized about my COM105 partner.

I went through a lot of tube socks that semester.

I dated around a little, but no one compared to the COM105 goddess.

My freshman year ended, and she went home to her family and I went home to mine. We only lived about twenty minutes from each other, so we met for dinners in the summer and talked on the phone every day. Sometimes multiple times a day.

In my mind, I sort of considered her my girlfriend, just without the sexual side of things. Well, sort of. I imagined having sex with her just about every night, even though we weren’t technically together.

Okay, so I admit it was the more important side of things, but I was okay with things the way they were.

That was a lie. I was in no way okay with it. I was in love with the girl who had become my best friend. I wanted to kiss her. I’d become obsessed with her in a very non-stalker and non-creepy way. I could’ve had my pick of girls, but I didn’t want any of them.

I wanted Rachelle.

And I had absolutely no idea at the time that wanting Rachelle would become the theme of my entire adult life.