Walking Heartbreak (8 page)

“She’s pretty hardcore too, huh?” I laugh softly, not wanting to scare her off.

In this glow, I see her differently. Her face is a perfect oval with small, protruding cheekbones and skin that’s unnaturally smooth in the dim light. Her lips seem redder than before. I want… Shit, I might
need
that color to be from my kisses.

“Zoe is crazy, and she puts up with me and my different kind of crazy, and I love her like crazy.” The awkwardness recedes when she talks about her friend, and the nearness we had before leaks back in.

“So crazy loves crazy?” I help, which makes her snicker.

“Yeah, I think so.”

My hands slide along the sides of her thighs, up the comforter until I circle her hips. Mirth sits in my throat at our easy banter. The gleam in her eye remains playful.

But then we connect; this sweet girl’s knees peak around my body, and I’m welcomed by her. She’s warm against me, her breathing changing. If destiny interrupted us with our friends’ return, then now is when we’re back on track. I’m going to please her.

“Are you where you want to be right now?” I ask quietly.

She nods, chocolate hair flowing over her shoulders. “I think I need this.” The answer shoots straight to my crotch.

“In that case, I’m going to undress you.”

On the couch in the den, she’d been writhing against me, all sensation and needing me bad. Now, I don’t know why, but she continues on sheer willpower. Just—

If we do this? It’s going to be because she craves me.

NADIA

I keep telling him I want this.
Keep telling him I’m ready. On his couch, I’d erased everything except his nearness, the sensation new and offbeat after such a long time.

He’s in my space and insistent, beautiful in his desire for me. It’s crazy to have someone want me like this again, stare at me as if they want to devour me, like they can’t thwart what their body wants to do to me.

Bo nods once, another question from his position on the floor between my knees. I nod back, and my heart skips in anticipation. I exhale. Begin unbuttoning my shirt. The top one always gets stuck with its too-narrow eyelet.

Bo’s hand comes up between us. Gently, he takes over where my fingers trembled, and he kisses me, kisses me the way he did when I forgot everything in the den. Bo’s touch saturates me while strong fingers glide from one button to the next, revealing more of me with each move. My breath stutters because I’m not used to the heat pooling in my abdomen.

“You sure?” he whispers again.

“I’m sure…” My skin puckers in goose bumps at the quiet slide of fabric to the mattress. I hunch my shoulders protectively before warm hands cup them and skate the straps of my bra down my arms.

My awareness shifts to my breasts. The skin there is so sensitive right now, the cotton scrapes against my nipples as he pulls the cups down. Bo unhooks the bra with a sure hand, and I’m bare, so insanely bare in front of him.

A small, guttural noise vibrates in his throat, and my nipples tighten from it, giving me away. For a second, he sits back on his haunches, gazing at me. A part of me wants to keep my eyes open, but shame wins and makes me close them.

“Don’t be embarrassed. You are so beautiful,” he whispers, and I think of someone else saying the same thing. Guilt and freedom amalgamate in my chest. It’s a strange, strange blend.

I suck in the deepest breath, waiting for his next move.

“I’ve wanted to see these babies,” he whispers. “I’ve fantasized, imagining them. And they’re—ah. I’m going to need my hands on them. I’ll make you feel good, Nadia.”

Before I can reply, he rises above me, hikes me up onto the bed, and lies down beside me, a leg over mine, so close he’s firm against my thigh. Then his mouth comes down on mine. His fingers rake into my hair, tugging me flush against him, and with his other hand, he finally caresses my breasts.

I’m tight and warm inside. Instinctively, I clench my stomach. Bo shifts downward, and I stop breathing for a second as he latches on to a nipple and sucks me in with an insistence that makes my spine bow off the mattress.

I want more—need more—I’m not thinking clearly. So I shut my eyes. Block out memories, the past, and my grey future. I let myself experience this moment only, knowing deep down I deserve it. And it is—

Good!

I don’t see him undress the rest of me. I don’t see him peel off his own clothes. All I know is that not for a moment does he deprive me of his touch. A strong knee widening my posture on the mattress. His nose tickling hot air against me. Fingers caress and stroke, and when he needs both hands, his mouth is there, making me sigh.

“Hot damn,” he husks as he blankets me, warm, scented with man and cologne, and I’d forgotten how soft skin is when it slides over mine. I curl my arms around his neck. Dip into the heat at his nape and inhale him.

I shouldn’t feel this good.

I push the thought away, knowing we’re here to savor. Bo presses a palm down past my hipbone, toward the center of my stomach and holds still, pushing in gently. I feel his eyes burning on me while he soaks in the whimper he extracts from me.

I’m already climbing. It’s so hot between my legs, it’s difficult to think straight.

That’s when he begins to lap at me. First, he tastes my boobs, then he trails down my stomach until he finds me—
me—
and makes out with my—

I yelp. Stars prick behind my eyelids. I’m swollen there, ready, so made for this with him. He suckles on me, murmuring out his hunger.

“You are so delicious,” he tells me, and when two fingers slide inside me and he twists my warmest nub between his teeth, I hold my breath so I don’t squeal out my release.

My legs start shaking.

I fly. I fly so high.

After, I see the way Bo looks at me. His eyes are awed. How can his eyes be awed? We’re not married. Bo doesn’t love me. We don’t even know each other.

“That was gorgeous,” he whispers. Gaze still fixed on me, he sits up on his knee and fumbles with something. It’s a condom.

I bite my lip, anxious. Wriggle uncomfortably beneath him. I want to get up and run off, but…

I also need him really deep.

He obeys my last wish, sinking quietly over me and spreading my knees with his. Panic rises in me because—

What about Jude?

“Are you okay?” Bo breathes against my ear. Hard at the apex of my thighs, he glides in my sudden slickness. It feels so amazing, I can’t stop my hips from helping him. The perfection of the moment flashes through my brain. What I do might not be right, but it is good.

“I am,” I say on a small pant, the word coinciding with a new sting of lust at the bottom of my belly. The anticipation, the dread and desire, they’re slowly destroying me. He needs to do this, or I’ll morph into something else. Yes, right now I am orange and flammable, but I can shrivel into grey remorse in seconds.

Bo understands.

Bo stops moving.

Bo presses against me with pleasure-soothing hardness, and when he insists, my body cleaves open, accepting his entry.

He’s wide, unyielding even when the impulse to flee tenses my body. I make a noise that sounds like a croak, but it doesn’t scare him off. He continues, pressing slowly into me, and then his breath hitches.

“You’re tight,” he sighs out. “Please, I don’t want to hurt you. Tell me if I do.” He fills me completely, my walls stretching to accommodate him. I can’t really speak, because I’m bursting with the moment.

Sinking closer, he envelops me in his arms, his breath uneven against my neck while he waits for me to be comfortable. Only I am comfortable. So very, very comfortable. Timidly, I tilt my pelvis, a quiet encouragement.

My fingers dig into his shoulders, begging, and again he understands. We move. We both do, a synchronized, quiet dance, a wave of two bodies joined.

He feels better than anything has in so long. Every inch of my skin reacts to him as he claims me—carries me with him to this place where the good outshines the bad. Where guilt doesn’t exist and misery has no place.

Bo doesn’t stop until it’s too much, and I subdue a scream below him, swelling and tightening around our contact. “Is it sweet?” he asks just when I can’t think anymore, and that too adds to my pleasure.

My muscles quiver, lasting, lasting, but in the end, they relax, landing from the flight he took me on. His movements over me turn jerky, and his breath shudders hot at my ear.

I open my eyes, wanting to absorb how I make him feel, and in the dim light I see his bottomless ones, blind with desire, and the beauty of having caused such bliss rushes a shiver through me.

“Ah Nadia,” he pleads, like he wants me to do something. My response is instinctive. I cup his face with my hands and make him moan out his climax against my mouth.

I remember Bo
returning to the bed with a warm washcloth and cleaning my body. I remember being patted down with a dry towel afterward, making me feel cared for in my sated state. But I don’t recall falling asleep.

It’s light outside when I wake up. I’m in Bo’s arms, and his chin is nestled over my head. I fit in against him, and with his arm loosely around my waist, we’re in this sleep-embrace that’s so natural it stings. I swallow, letting the morning flood me with the sins of yesterday.

“Yeah, that’s how you jack someone off,” Emil’s voice mutters through the wall.

“Really?” Zoe asks, sounding surprised.

“No! If you had one yourself, you’d destroy it in three seconds flat.”

Low snickers from Zoe.

I hear them so clearly, a flush of shame creeps up my throat and into my face. I don’t want to consider what they might have heard of Bo and me last night. He’d been quiet though.
I’d
been quiet.

I’m always quiet.

“Hey, beautiful.” Bo’s voice is morning-raspy. I tilt my head back to see his face.

“Good morning.” There’s a smile in my voice. I hear it myself, and it’s strange.

“Are they at it in there?” he asks, and I titter, uneasy.

“I don’t know. It’s hard to tell what they’re doing.”

“‘Jack off?’ Nah, it’s pretty clear. As far as I know, it means—”

“Shhh,” I cut him off instinctively, and he raises an eyebrow at me. “Dirty word?”

He retracts to better study me, but I hide quickly against his neck.

“Hmm. Nadia’s blushing,” he explains to himself. “You’re even prettier when you blush, like last night when you—”

“Please!” I never raise my voice, but he can’t say that word.

“Came?” His voice is silky and teasing and a bit merciless.

“You’re mean,” I mumble, my cheeks so hot I’m dying.

Lean arms cage me in and tighten around me. “You were perfect.”

I don’t reply because I’m embarrassed. Why would he mention something that personal? I don’t
know
this man. And… I don’t do this stuff.

Shame is a friend, a family member. She has returned full force, and now I fight her sister too: guilt. Guilt is never far behind.

Hard raps on the door interrupt us. “Nadia? You there?”

“Yeah,” I start, then rinse my voice with a small cough and repeat it louder. I expect Zoe to open, not giving me privacy to get into my clothes. I even expect a few clever comments. I don’t get either.

“We’re heading out for breakfast. You coming?” she asks.

No. I need to go home.

“Sure, give us five,” Bo replies.

“’Kay!” my friend sings out.

“I can’t,” I tell Bo.

“Aren’t you hungry?” He brushes hair from my face the way he did last night when he comforted me. He pulls on a lock and tucks it between my shoulder and the pillow. Silly.

“Yeah, but…”

“He’s waiting for you?”

I shut my eyes and taste the metallic flavor of guilt in my mouth. “Not waiting—”

“He’s there though, right? Or is he deployed or something?”

Bo should be repulsed by my actions—he knows I’m married. My hands go up on their own, and the goal is to cover my face and black out his expression. Just… he doesn’t look repulsed. He looks concerned.

Last night, the booze talked for me. This morning, I’m not an open book anymore.

“Ah no. I’m not an army wife,” I say. I force myself to relax, and I say the only thing I can think of that will stop his questions.

“Okay, I’ll do breakfast.”