All Things Pretty (18 page)

If it were possible to completely erase all
other women from a man’s mind in a single night, I’d choose that.
The mere suggestion that I might be the only person on his mind
brings me comfort and a happy smile. Which is insane because it
doesn’t work that way. But it doesn’t stop me from wishing it
did.

Travis and I eat in silence. He seems
especially sulky, which surprises me.

“Didn’t you have fun today?” I ask.

“Yeah,” comes his glum response.

“Then what’s wrong?”

Travis pushes his plate across the table at
me, almost violently, standing up so fast his chair tips over.
“We’ll never have a life like that. Normal.”

He stalks off, back down the hall to his
bedroom, leaving me sitting at the table with my mouth hanging
open. After I recover, I follow him.

I knock softly and then crack the door,
sticking only my head inside. “Travis, that’s what I’m working
toward. It just takes time.”

He’s lying on his bed, his chin on his
chest, with his hood pulled low over his eyes.
That damn
hoodie!

“Even then, we’ll never have a life like
that.”

“Don’t be so sure,” I tell him, hoping that
maybe one day, I can give him what he’s missed out on all of his
life. “I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve.”

Travis gives me a withering look. “We don’t
need tricks. We need a miracle.”

On that petulant note, Travis pushes ear
buds into his ears and starts scrolling through his phone for
music. The end of the conversation, obviously. Which is probably
good. I don’t know that I could add anything more right now anyway.
I can’t promise him a miracle. I can’t really promise him much of
anything, other than I’m trying with all that’s in me to make a
better life for us. For him. Even for me. There has to be more than
this.

After I clean up the kitchen and feed Mom,
I’m straightening her room when Travis pops his head in. “So you’re
staying in tonight?”

“Yep. Just us. Wanna watch a movie or
something?”

He frowns like I just asked him if I could
have a kidney. “No, I don’t. I’m going to Trip’s. I’ll do my
homework there.”

“Seriously?” I say, dropping my hands by my
side. “What is it with you? Every single time I make plans to stay
home for the night with you, you bail. What, are you allergic to me
or something?”

“None of your business,” he says
grouchily.

I bite my tongue. I try not to fuss. Or
crowd him. Or treat him like a kid. Or like he’s different. Or do
any of the other million and one things that I know upset him.
Travis needs lots of calm. Lots of predictability. But he also
needs social interaction and friends, something he seems only to
get with Trip. So I keep my mouth shut and I pray that he doesn’t
get into trouble or get hurt.

He lingers in the doorway. I don’t know if
he has something else to say or if he’s waiting for me to say
something. At any rate, neither of us speaks again and he just
wanders off, back to his room to slam the door.

Half an hour later, I’m starting a load of
laundry when I hear the front door open and close. I race to the
porch before Travis can get all the way down the driveway.

“Don’t be too late!” I shout. Without
turning around, back pack slung over one shoulder, he raises one
hand in acknowledgment and keeps on walking.

Back inside, I go from room to room in our
small house, straightening the few things that need straightening.
After that, I paint my toenails. Then I put a mud masque on my
face, the whole time thinking of Sig and his muddy handprint on my
chest. Then I run a hot bath and shave everything from my ankles to
my armpits. It’s as I’m lying against the cool ceramic that my mind
starts to wander again. And it wanders to Sig. To his touch, to his
kiss. To what almost happened earlier today.

My body aches. Just at the thought of
him.

I close my eyes, effortlessly conjuring
Sig’s liquid brown eyes, his perfectly sculpted mouth, his big,
slightly rough hands.
God!

Almost of their own accord, my palms drift
over my breasts, pausing to tease the throbbing nipples, just like
Sig would do. Like he
did
. I recall the feel of his mouth
there, hot and open. Riling my body into a flurry of want and need.
My core responds to my thoughts, sending a gush of heat southward.
I move my hands down. Farther and farther. Closer to the place
where the ache is strongest, where the emptiness is deepest.

I cup my center as my mind elicits Sig’s
fingers, his lips, his tongue, delving inside me. Filling yet not
totally, satisfying yet not completely. Teasing. Toying. Making me
crazy. He knew I needed more, craved more. He was just enjoying the
rise, the climb, until he could drive his body into mine and quench
this excruciating thirst.

But my touch isn’t Sig’s. No matter how
tightly I close my eyes, no matter how much I concentrate, no
matter how much I wish it
were
his, it’s not. It isn’t his
hands or his mouth. His kiss or his scent. His laugh or his growl.
I’m in
my
bathroom. In
my
home. Alone, for all
intents and purposes. Exactly what I don’t want to be right
now.

Frustrated, I pull the plug to drain the tub
before stepping out and toweling off. Standing in the steamy room,
I rub scented lotion over every inch of my hyper sensitive skin,
groaning with my want of something more.

I wipe the moisture from the mirror and meet
the wide eyes and flushed cheeks of my reflection. I’m startled by
what’s written all over my face. Desire. Withering resistance.
Increasing need.

I won’t be able to stop myself from giving
in to him. I know it as sure as I’m standing here. He’s like an
addiction that has crept up on me unawares and taken over. I’m
smart enough to realize when I’m fighting a losing battle. I’m also
smart enough to realize that if I go about this wisely, we can both
put an end to the torture and move on. Just once. One and done.
It’s the way it has to be.

Enjoy tonight. Move on tomorrow.

But we can have tonight.

Tonight will be for us.

Sig.

And me.

And all that’s between us.

Just one night.

I stare at the same face, reflected now with
subtle changes. Eyes bright with resolution, lips trembling with
anticipation.

Once my mind is made up, I’m nearly frantic.
I throw on shorts and a tee shirt–nothing spectacular since I don’t
plan to be wearing it long–stopping only long enough to scribble
Travis a note for when he gets home, telling him not to wait up and
to call if he needs me. He’ll assume that I’m with Lance.

I don’t even bother pulling my hair out of
its loose topknot. I simply grab my purse, lock the door and run to
the car. I can’t get to his house quickly enough.

I’m out of breath when I make it to his
door, knocking with all the urgency that I suddenly feel. When Sig
finally appears in front of me, only a few short seconds (that felt
like lifetimes) later, his expression is wild, like he was
expecting something else. Trouble maybe?

His eyes meet mine, and we stand perfectly
still and silent. He frowns for a second and then scans my face.
His gaze travels over my flushed cheeks, my parted lips, down to my
heaving chest. And then, as though he can somehow read my body and
its intent, they flick suddenly back up to mine and stop.

For thirty second or so, a million unspoken
things pass between us. There is doubt, indecision, a touch of
fear. All on my part. In this moment, it’s driven home what a huge
mistake I could be making.

On his face, one thing. A question. A single
query. Can I walk away?

Can I?

With my heart beating an ancient rhythm
against my ribs, marking me with a tattoo that I will forever be
left with, I bask in the richness of his eyes, the beauty of his
face and the acceptance of my choice, whatever it is. It’s all
here, right in front of me. Someone who wants only me, to please
me, to be with me. Nothing else.

That
is what I can’t walk away from.
Not just yet.

Wordlessly, I do my best to answer Sig, to
answer his question. By holding steady, by standing still,
unwavering in front of him.

Time slows. Body’s react. The only thing I
can hear is the sound of Sig’s accelerated breathing and the rush
of blood whirring inside my ears. And then I hear nothing. I see
nothing. I’m immediately carried, heart, mind and body, into the
tiny bubble of what I feel. For this man, for his touch, for this
thing that’s between us.

With a strike so fast, it seems out of place
in this molasses moment, Sig’s hands snap out to cup my face and
his lips crash down onto mine. There is no room for second thoughts
or questions or gentleness. There is only need. And passion. And a
craving that’s completely out of control.

I open for him and he dives into a kiss that
I feel all the way into my bones. I feel every lick of his tongue
like a sweet scrape down my spine, every touch of his fingertips
like soothing sandpaper over my soul.

He pulls me inside, flinging the door shut
behind us. He wraps his arms around me, lifting me off my feet and
carrying me to the bedroom. It’s dark and quiet here, the room
filled only with the heat that our fevered bodies are generating
and the scorching sensation of our want.

Already, I’m as desperate as I was this
afternoon. After just one kiss, I want nothing more than for him to
fill me up. Make me his.

Leaving my lips only long enough to pull my
shirt over my head, Sig strips me quickly and efficiently of my
clothes until I’m held snugly in his arms with nothing but air
covering me.

With his one hand fiddling with his zipper,
Sig lifts me enough to capture one straining nipple between his
lips. And he sucks. Deliciously hard, so much so that I throw my
head back and thread my fingers into his hair, holding his sweet
cruelty close.

Laving my turgid flesh, he manages to free
himself. Incoherent with desire, I wrap my legs around him, so
needy that I can’t think past how to get him inside me. I hear the
rustle of a wrapper and then, almost savagely, Sig turns, presses
my back to the wall and drives his body up into mine.

My lungs freeze and my head bumps back
against the cool plaster. I literally can’t breathe for a few
seconds. I can only feel. Everywhere, all my nerves are alive with
his penetration. He’s so big, he’s buried so deep that my body
struggles to accept him just as my mind struggles to process the
pleasure-pain of his presence.

Sig goes perfectly still, only the sound of
his heavy breathing in my ear for a few seconds. And then I hear a
gruff yet tender, “Did I hurt you?”

He begins to ease back out and I exhale,
managing a short, “No. Please.”

And that’s all I get out. Sliding his tongue
into my open mouth, Sig lowers me slightly, dropping me down as he
flexes his hips, plunging even farther into me, stealing my breath
once more.

I’m teeming with sensation. My lips, my
nipples, my legs, my sex. My skin. My core. I feel Sig all over,
like the brilliance of lightning, bottled and transferred to my
body through his, jumping excitedly from synapse to synapse. With
every movement of his cock within me, sensation explodes outward,
like a geyser, raining beautiful, white fire into my blood.

Pressing my back harder into the wall, Sig
reaches down, around my legs where they join my body, and places
his fingertips on either side of my straining entrance, pulling
gently and spreading me further. He swivels his hips and then
thrusts sharply up, the friction of the movement against my
wide-spread lips stimulating every bundle of nerves in my sex. I
come apart. In his hands, against the wall, around his shaft. Like
a mushroom cloud, I detonate, out into the stars, and then my world
quickly shrinks back to the hot, wet place where we are joined. My
world becomes so tightly focused on my climax that I can neither
think nor speak.

“God, yes!” he growls through gritted teeth
as my body clutches his in my first spasm. I bite my lip to keep
from screaming his name. I milk him rhythmically, the fullness of
him inside me intensifying each wave. His growl dissolves into a
groan and he murmurs into my ear, “That’s what I want. To feel you
coming for me. Just me. Just me.”

Like punctuation to each sentence, he
strokes me from the inside, slowly, gently, prolonging my ecstasy
until my arms fall limply to my sides.

When my limbs begin to regain feeling,
shedding the heavy numbness of orgasm, Sig holds me to him and
moves me away from the wall. His body is still deeply seated within
mine when he kneels on the mattress and tenderly lowers my upper
body onto the comforter.

He keeps my legs wrapped around him, my hips
off the bed, as he barely flexes into me. My body reacts instantly,
shivering around him and eliciting a gasp from my tingling
lips.

“Stay with me,” he says softly, reaching out
with one hand to stroke from the top of my sex to my chin. As he
moves his hand back down, he presses into me, one slow, deep
thrust, and I moan, a luxuriant noise that
sounds
like he’s
making me
feel.

“Yes, for a while,” I reply, opening my eyes
to his.

He’s watching me, his eyes black in the low
light.

“Until I’ve had enough of you?”

“Yes, until we’ve had enough.”

He separates from me, his big hands sliding
down to cup my butt. He sinks to his knees at the foot of the bed
and sweeps his tongue from my entrance to my clit, drawing it
sweetly into his mouth for a light suck. “Until we’ve had enough,”
he agrees.

With the very tips of his fingers, the kiss
of his lips and the softest tickle of his tongue, Sig teases me
back to life. The pleasure of my climax shifts and blends to
accommodate the rise of something else, something new. He weaves a
magical spell over my body, ruthlessly winding me up with a
ceaseless onslaught. His pace never quickens, yet never slows; it’s
steady and maddening and, within minutes, he has my back arching
off the bed and my lips begging for more. For deeper. For
harder.