The Space Between (19 page)

“Of course it does.” Patrick’s eyebrows lifted, and he smiled at the tattoo as if he were trying to unlock the riddle. Minutes passed but he continued studying my skin. He glanced at me and asked, “Is that from something?”

I blinked at him, waiting.

“You really aren’t going to tell me.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

“I’ll work on that,” he murmured, shifting to kneel over me.

His eyes swept over my torso, stopping to study the bites and bruises left by his teeth. The conflict in his eyes was evident. For a moment his brows would knit together and his lips would flatten into a grim line, and then he’d remember I asked—let’s get real: I begged—for it, and he’d relax perceptibly. I ran my hands through his hair as an extra layer of reassurance.

“Do you have any others?”

“Maybe.”

Patrick’s head dropped to my sternum, and he released a long, rumbling sound that vibrated through my body and put my ladybits on high alert.

“You…you drive me fucking crazy,” he growled, his hands flexing on my hips. “Completely. Fucking. Crazy. I should spank your ass red for your little stunt last week, or you should get on your knees for letting me think you weren’t showing up tonight.”

Lust swamped my blood and swelled my center, and I was speechless. I had plenty of sex in college and grad school, but never sex like this. Never desperate, frenzied sex that involved spanking or biting or my ankles over anyone’s shoulders. This was exceptionally new to me, but I didn’t want it to stop.

“Can I have both?”

Patrick’s head snapped up, his eyes shining with the same heat that was flooding my thighs with arousal. Clamping his hands on my waist, he flipped me over and pulled my hips up.

“Fuck yes,” he growled, his hand connecting with my bare backside.

I yelped, and his hand rubbed away the light sting. It didn’t hurt. Part of me loved the smarting tingle, and the way it heightened the throbbing, clenching sensations building inside me. I didn’t know what that said about me, and I didn’t want to examine it closely.

The other part of me wanted to be horrified. What kind of woman lets a guy—her boss, no less—throw her face down on a bed with her ass in the air and spank her? And because of something I did last week? Nothing about that sounded right to me, and I inched away from Patrick’s hold.

“Baby, get back here. I am
not
done.”

His hand pressed against the base of my spine while another spank landed low on my backside, nearly connecting with my thighs. It was different—better—and I stopped plotting an escape. Two more landed in the same area, and between wildly unrestrained moans, my thoughts were spilling out of my head so quickly I lost track of the issue I wanted to take with spanking.

I decided to make my case some other day.

Patrick dipped two fingers inside me and stroked slowly while a hand continued caressing my backside. I was shivering with anticipation, hoping Patrick would deliver the next spank with his fingers inside me—better yet, he’d get a condom and really join the fun.

His hands froze in place, and I looked over my shoulder at him. “What was that ‘hm’ about?”

My eyes dropped to his erection where it jutted out from his body, standing proudly at attention. “Mmm,” I sighed. “Just wondering when you were going to stop chatting and fuck me again.”

“You are such a demanding, dirty girl,” he growled, his hand connecting with my skin inches from where his fingers moved inside me. I moaned into the pillow and pushed back against his fingers, craving a little more friction. He retreated, and I cried out at his departure—he left me with a snarling, frustrating need, and while I knew he wasn’t leaving to make a sandwich, I was too worked up to be anything less than outraged.

Patrick folded himself over me, dragging his teeth up my neck, and I quivered when he reached my ear and spoke softly against my skin. “What did you expect would happen, when you decided to come here?”

I rolled my eyes and pressed my hips against him, feeling his erection nestled between my cheeks. My body protested, overcome with a discomfort light stroking would not assuage. “I have the
New York Times
crossword puzzle app on my phone, and you never did get to hear my position on laminate.”

“Let’s get a few things straight. First, you hate laminate. That doesn’t require discussion. Second, when I’m finished with you, a crossword puzzle is about the only thing you’re going to be able to do. And third, don’t doubt that I’ll fuck you senseless and those snappy little comments will fall right out of your head.”

My back arched and I rocked against Patrick’s erection. “You make a lot of lists, Patrick. Do you intentionally speak in bullet points?”

Patrick leaned away from me and I heard the rustle of a condom. I sighed in relief.

“
Andy
,” Patrick growled.

I loved that sound. I wanted to record it and use it as his ring tone. It would require some explanation in mixed company, but I’d live with that.

“Soon enough, kitten, the only thing you’ll have to say is ‘thank you.’”

“I told you I had enough talking ten minutes ago.”

“You also told me you’ve spent the past month thinking about me fingering you in a bar.”

He tucked my knees under my body and anchored my wrists on the small of my back before positioning himself at my opening. Being pinned down offered an unexpected thrill, filling me with breathless desire. I wiggled against him to express my impatience.

“You know how to wait for what you want.”

“Patrick,” I whispered, desperation wrapped in each syllable. I twisted my fingers in Patrick’s hold, lacing them with his. “Fuck me. Please.”

“I’m not stopping you,” he murmured, and I turned his words over and over before backing against him. He filled me completely, and responded with a sharp thrust. “Andy, fuck, yes.”

A stinging spank landed low on my backside as he pulled out, and I shrieked as the reverberations bounced through my throbbing core. My fingers clenched around his, wordlessly begging for more while his cock lingered at my opening. He answered with a squeeze to my fingers and a hard thrust that inched me farther up the bed.

His competence was impressive, though reminiscent of the fact Patrick was older, evidently much more experienced, and wise to his preferences. His erection brushed over my clit and through my folds, and though the sensation wracked me with shivers, I needed to remind myself this would most likely crash and burn, leaving me to pick up the pieces alone. Memories of stellar orgasms wouldn’t save me then.

“I can actually hear you thinking, kitten.” Patrick leaned over me, his teeth running along my shoulder as he eased out of me, and ever so slowly slid in again. He released my hands, but pressed them against my back in silent command. His fingers crawled over my belly and down to my clit, moving in rhythmic circles that had me moaning into the mattress. “Let. It. Go. Whatever it is, let it go, and focus on what you feel right here.”

I hummed in agreement, banishing thoughts of disaster with a pledge to protect myself no matter what, and I turned my face to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “That voice of yours is hypnotic. You could be reading your grocery list and I’d still be on the edge of the best orgasm ever,” I panted. “But I’m not a delicate flower, Patrick. Save the narrative and fuck me.”

“You know, you could just do what you’re told.” Laughing, he delivered a teasing slap to my ass. He was unhurried and thorough, and my body loved the decadent fullness of him buried inside me while his fingers tended to my clit.

“I could.” He continued with deep, protracted strokes. I met his thrusts, once again begging for more. “But you don’t really want that. You want much more than that from me.”

Patrick paused before his hips snapped against me and he launched into a furious rhythm that brought about my complete surrender—my mind was blank to everything but the orgasm building low in my core.

“If you knew what I really wanted,” he murmured, his words punctuated with guttural moans and gasps. “You would…ah, fuck, Andy, you’re right there.”

His teeth gnashed into my shoulder, and I exploded—every inch of my skin tingled while my orgasm multiplied with Patrick’s continued thrusting. He kept talking, but it wasn’t what I wanted to hear—it wasn’t an explanation of what he wanted or what I would do with that information.

“God, Andy, tell me you feel that.” He spoke around my shoulder, his breath soothing the sting of his bite. “I feel you coming all over my cock and my fingers, and yes, yes, keep going, don’t you fucking stop.” Kisses rained across my shoulder blades, and I shivered beneath his touch. “Oh fuck, the things you do to me, Andy. Fuck,
fuck
, I’m close, so…so…so close.”

Lingering in that hypersensitive post-orgasmic phase while Patrick chased his release, I focused on flexing my internal muscles around him—thank you very much, yoga—and it was a win for us both. I got my first-ever double orgasm, which was a lot like a bliss-filled near drowning.

“Oh God, Andy. I’m gonna fuck this hot little pussy until you forget that anyone else has ever been here. This is only for me.”

Patrick yelled a long, filthy soliloquy when he came, collapsed over me, and wrapped his arms around my body to roll us to our sides.

Disappointment washed over me. I wanted to see Patrick’s orgasm roll through him, to feel that bone-deep connection—the one that had the power to ignite the air, the one that convinced me I needed to protect myself for the day this ended—again. I wanted to see the intensity behind his promises of possession.

For once in my life, I yearned for the simple comforts of face-to-face missionary.

Patrick nestled his face against my neck and breathed deeply. “You were right.”

Glancing over my shoulder, I slanted him a look. “About what?”

He smiled against my neck—that one gesture broke through the heavy gates I was using to keep him from trampling my heart—and he chuckled softly. “Terrifying and amazing.”

*

Patrick’s door code
was burning a hole in my back pocket. It was a hot, constant reminder that my Sex God was a text away, and relative to the wannabe-Vegas club Marley insisted we hit, that reminder sounded better and better.

Yeah, he was
my
Sex God now.

“What’ll it be?”

I glanced up at the bartender and rattled off our drink order. When he returned, I threaded the martini glass stems between my fingers and elbowed my way through the crowd, cursing each time the drinks bobbled and liquid sloshed over the rims. I needed to teach Jess and Marley how to drink without all the flavored sweetness.

We toasted to not needing men to make us happy—Jess and Marley were swearing off men after another Valentine’s Day spent alone.

No need to mention I was exceptionally happy with the man in my life or that there was a man to mention at all—sort of. It wasn’t like that with Patrick because I asked for something different, and I could lie and convince myself I was content with that.

I’d be a little more content if I was in his bed instead of a crowded club in the Back Bay, and I’d be a lot more content if I wasn’t compelled to continue inventing boundaries so that I consumed Patrick in measured doses.

The sex was…amazing, and up until that night when I showed up at Patrick’s door, I lived in dim ignorance of the kind of amazing it could be, but that wasn’t why I needed to keep our time in check. I didn’t trust myself to see Patrick outside of work more than once a week.

Spending the night was dangerous—without a clear exit strategy, we were getting fresh mango-papaya pastelitos for breakfast and that always led to Patrick licking something off my lip, and we all knew where that led.

If I wasn’t careful, an entire weekend evaporated before my eyes. Not that I didn’t want Cuban pastries or sex-filled weekends with Patrick—I did, and more than I was comfortable admitting. But he didn’t sign up for that, and if I had any hope of walking away unscathed at the end of my apprenticeship, I needed to keep it tidy. And tidy meant parceling out our time into bite-sized chunks, and no pastelitos.

“Okay, so I know I said I don’t need to be in a relationship,” Marley said, a hand gingerly touching her hairspray-frozen waves. “But I’d be happier with one, and it’s not wrong to admit that. It doesn’t make me any less strong or independent.”

“Yeah,” Jess agreed. “If that man was good enough for you and took care of you. You deserve someone who treats you like a princess.”

The words were out before I could rein in my annoyed tone. “Meaning what?”

I witnessed some version of this conversation every time I went out with Jess and Marley. They always wanted to be princesses, and though I didn’t know enough about my heritage to speak with authority, I knew some princesses lived a life very different from Marley and Jess’s imagination, and they often met with tragedy.

Marley’s eyes turned dreamy as she leaned her head toward me. “Someone who surprises me with romantic dinners and flowers at work. He has to hold the door, and get angry when he sees other guys checking me out. I love those guys who go apeshit when they see someone hitting on their girlfriends. And he goes crazy on guys who treated me bad in the past.”