I nodded slowly, listening to what Jessa was saying but not offering anything more. This entire evening had been a Gabe Kitrick 101 crash course, and I was still processing everything I’d learned.
“I don’t know. I guess I just thought it was supposed to get better. I mean it has for me. I miss Mom, but…it’s gotten easier.” She shook her head. “Sometimes I think it’s just gotten harder for her. Time’s supposed to heal this shit, but it isn’t for her. I don’t understand.” Her eyes shimmered in the dim kitchen light.
I took a deep breath, still nodding slightly.
“You’re her boyfriend. I just—”
“I’m not her boyfriend, Jessa,” I corrected.
“Then why are you sleeping with her?”
I didn’t know how to respond to that. I looked down at the countertop between us, and I gritted my teeth. “It’s complicated.” It was a pathetic response.
“I just… I’m worried. Has she said anything to you? Or…” She shrugged.
I shook my head. “She’ll be okay.”
“Really? I’ve been telling myself that for over a year now. You haven’t known her that long, but she actually does know how to smile,” she said sarcastically. “Something isn’t right, but she won’t talk to me anymore—about anything.”
She snatched my glass of water off the counter and took a big gulp.
She scowled at me disappointedly. “Couldn’t you at least put some gin in this? I thought all rich people spiked their water.”
I shook my head. “Sorry.”
Jessa slid off the chair. “I’m going to give her hell for being a slut tomorrow.”
“No, you’re not,” I said without a shred of humor.
Jessa stopped, staring at me as her brow wrinkled.
“No, you’re not,” I repeated. I studied her until she nodded in agreement. “Goodnight, Jessa.”
“Yeah,” she responded, and then she headed back for the guest bedroom.
I dumped the rest of the water in the sink and returned to bed, slipping my sweatpants off. Gabe was lying on her stomach with one leg pulled up. The sheets were down to her lower back, showing the top of her bottom. Her long hair was splayed out around her, and she’d tucked her hands under the pillow.
I pulled myself up behind her, resting my hand on her hip, and she moaned quietly in her sleep when she felt my lips on her shoulder.
Chapter 10
Gabrielle
I
watched him while he slept. He had a kind face, but it was also one that could cool very quickly. He knew how to use his expression, his tone, his body language to move in and out of the part he was playing. I supposed it was his job, a requirement for the type of work he did. He was a master manipulator, after all.
I had no doubt he was, at least if he chose to be. But I didn’t feel like a puppet on a string at the moment. I had a difficult time understanding men, understanding their intent and motivation. They were strange, suspicious creatures to me. But there’d been an authenticity to Keegan’s anger at dinner that felt outside of his control, and for whatever reason, that was incredibly comforting.
He moaned quietly in his sleep as he shifted closer to me. I was lying on my stomach beside him, pushed up on my elbows as I looked down at him. He’d left his desk light on, and while it was far enough away to cast only a faint glow in the bedroom, it was enough to see him.
I touched his mouth, running my finger across his lip and down over his chin. He was stubbly, and the hairs prickled against the pad of my index finger. He stretched as he inhaled deeply, and then his eyes opened.
He watched me for a long time, just staring up at me as I looked right back down at him. He rolled away from me and climbed out of bed, and I watched him walk across the room to the bathroom off the office nook. My blood warmed in my veins as I watched his body move.
I rolled from bed too, walking to the window and staring out at the vast dark lake beyond. I listened to his footsteps getting closer to me, and when I looked at his darkened reflection in the window, I saw the glint of a foil packet in his fingers. The bedside lamp clicked on, and the room around me lit up. I could now see his reflection in the window nearly as clearly as if it were a mirror, and I watched as he walked toward me and stepped up behind me.
His hand clasped my hip, and his other reached around me. He braced himself with his palm to the glass, but he held a condom between his first and second fingers, taunting me at eye level.
He leaned down, kissing my shoulder and then up to my ear. “Use me,” he whispered. “I know you need to.”
My shoulders rose and fell slowly as I took a deep breath and let it out. I nodded, and he pushed off the window, taking a couple steps back to the side of the bed. I watched him in the reflection rather than turning to see him. He didn’t sit on the side of the bed. Rather, he lowered himself to sit on the floor, and he leaned back against the side of the bed.
I could see his eyes roving over the backside of my body, and he stroked his cock, which was hard and large. I continued to watch as he tore into the condom packet, pulled it out and slipped it over the tip of his dick. My breath was coming in short, quick pants as I watched, and when he rolled the condom down the length of his cock, I bit my lower lip as a rush of warmth and wetness surged to my groin.
His eyes lifted to meet mine in the glass, and I finally turned to face him. His composure was so casual—his strong legs stretched out in front of him, his body leaned back against the bed. Even his hand that was lightly stroking his erection seemed mindless and easy.
“Come here.”
I stepped to his side, and he ran his hand up the back of my leg from my calf to my thigh. He was looking up at me, waiting for me to do something. I stepped across his thighs, straddling his legs, but rather than facing him, I faced away. He instantly sat up, gripped my buttocks and bit into one as I cried out.
I stepped out wider and bent over. A flush ran through my body and my heart sped as I moved. It was hard to be confident with him, so incredibly hard in comparison to the other men I’d been with. It was so easy to pretend to be assertive with those men, pretend to lead, when, in truth, it turned me the hell on when Keegan led.
I reached back with a trembling hand and gripped that place just between the top of my thigh and the bottom of my ass. I pulled, parting the lips of my pussy slightly. I closed my eyes when I heard him moan, and when he said, “Fuck,” quietly, I bit my lip.
“You better tell me what you want me to lick or I might get carried away and end up somewhere you’re not comfortable with.” His voice was warm and deep, and it prickled my skin.
“My pussy,” I whispered.
“Yes, dear,” he whispered right back.
He gripped my hips as he leaned to my pussy. He hummed as he licked me, and his tongue ran between the lips of my sex, thrusting into me. He was sloppy, and I was practically dripping by the time I reached between my legs and pushed his chin away from me with my finger.
He leaned back against the bed again, and I sank to my knees over his lap. I ran my palm down the length of his erection, letting my fingers trail down over his testicles. They tightened at my touch, and he cursed in response. When I gripped the shaft, holding him erect from his body, he slid farther down, lying back more.
I lowered myself over him, and when his cockhead touched my sex, I sank farther, letting my body be impaled by his thickness. He groaned, and I cried out as he stretched me open. I let go of his erection then, reaching for his knees and steadying myself.
I lifted my hips and pushed back down, careful to keep him within me, and I listened to the sounds he made. His moan was quiet and sexy as hell, but the best were the soft grunts that would catch in his throat when I would constrict on him and sink over his cock at the same time. I made it torturously slow at first, but when I touched my clit and stroked that tight knot of nerves, my hips sped.
I moved up and down, panting and groaning, my finger still stroking me closer and closer to my end, and when I finally lost it, I fell forward, digging my nails into his legs. He grabbed my hips, pulling me hard to his lap and holding himself inside me as I shook and twitched through my orgasm. I lay panting across his legs after my release passed and closed my eyes.
His hands were still on my hips, and his thumbs pulled my butt cheeks farther apart. His fingers started to trace the place where our bodies met, and I shivered when he brushed over the sensitive skin at the very back of my opening. I let him touch and toy and play for a while, and he hummed as his fingers moved.
Once I’d regained my composure, I pushed up to my hands and lifted my hips, letting his cock pop free from my body. He pulled his legs back from between mine, and he quickly leaned up and over my body, pressing down on my back between my shoulder blades as he rose to his knees. I let my chest rest on the floor, keeping my bottom high and pushed up, and I watched him kneel up behind me in the reflection.
He met my eyes in the reflection moments before he thrust hard into my pussy, filling me in one painful, smooth invasion and nearly throwing me into the window in front of me. His hips smacked my bottom as he seated himself at my core. I reached out to the window, bracing myself with a hand to the glass, and when he pulled back, it was only for a second before he slammed hard into me again.
His fingers gripped my hips, and he worked them harshly and roughly back and forth. I was jolted with each thrust, and my legs started trembling. Every muscle felt as if it was liquefying as he pounded into me, one swift penetration after another, and I watched it all in the reflection.
He looked so strong. His arms were well defined, and tracing the line of those muscles down to his hands that gripped my hips and yanked me over his cock was intense. His torso was just as impressive, his pecs hard and chiseled, just like his stomach. Focusing on the way those muscles moved as he fucked me was the most arousing thing I’d ever seen.
My knees slipped farther apart as I started to collapse to the floor, but I ignored it, staring at his body as if mesmerized by the sight. By the time I was finally lying sprawled on the floor, he was humping me harder than even before, pinning me to the ground. He gripped my hair with his hand, pulling my head back, and I stared out the window as I listened to him grunt with every thrust of his hips.
I cried out, and he reached down, gripped the inside of my thigh, and pulled my leg up, opening the space between them so he could go deeper.
“Fuck,” he cursed under his breath, and it trailed off in another grunt. He bit my earlobe, and then he nipped his way down my neck to the top of my shoulder. His mouth stayed there as he pistoned almost violently between my legs. The smacking of our skin intensified, and I felt the burn of it on my bottom.
He came loudly, holding himself deep as he pulsed within me. His forehead dropped to the back of my neck, and he gasped and panted against my skin. He finally collapsed against me, and I could feel his heart hammering against my back. I panted as I started to relax again, and I stared down at the city far below, my fingers still pressed to the glass.
When he lifted himself from me, he reached down and helped me to stand. He snapped the condom off his dick, tossing it into the small waste can next to the nightstand, and then he pulled me into bed with him.
I drifted off to sleep, listening as his breathing slowed.
* * * *
I woke when he did. His cell phone was ringing quietly from his desk, and he darted from the bed toward his office nook. I closed my eyes, listening to him. I could hear his fingers drumming on the desktop as he stood there, but he didn’t answer the phone, as if he was dreading it for some reason. He finally sighed.
“Hello.”
He was silent as he listened to something the caller was saying, and the only sound in the room was the soft creak the chair made as he sat down.
“I’m not too worried about that at this point.” His voice was quiet, and I could tell when he’d swiveled the chair away from me by the way his voice moved and quieted even more.
I opened my eyes then. The room was dim, and only the faintest light was coming from the windows behind me. I watched him as he leaned back in his desk chair.
“Because I have reasonable assurance he won’t be seeing—”
And more silence.
“You don’t need to worry about it,” he practically whispered, but there was an irritation that made the words sound strained.
I heard his chair creak as he stood up and walked toward his bathroom. But he thought I was still sleeping, and when he pushed the door shut behind him, it failed to latch.
“Because she’s too busy fucking me to care about him, that’s why,” he hissed out angrily. “You sent me in here to do a job. Let me do it.” And then silence for a moment. “Fine. Send me the itinerary.”
His words echoed around the marble bathroom, and when the shower was turned on, I finally sat up to the side of the bed. My lips quivered pathetically, and I shook my head as the hurt socked me in the stomach like a fist.
He was using me. He was using me again. He was using me still. He was just…
using me
. How could I have been so stupid to think he was doing anything other than his job?
I stood quickly, throwing his T-shirt over my head, and then I walked from the room, crossing over to the guest bedroom. Jessa was still sound asleep, and I shook her until she was cussing and groaning about the end of the world.
“Get up. We’re leaving.”
“What?” She rolled toward me, scowling up at me as I redressed in my own clothes.
“Now.”
She grumbled as she rolled toward the alarm clock on the nightstand. “It’s only six o’clock. What is wrong with you? The bus doesn’t even leave until nine.”
“I’m not kidding. We have to go. Now.”
She finally threw the sheets back angrily, grabbed her jeans, and tugged them up her legs. “You fighting with lover boy again?” she asked rudely.
I paused for a moment. “No. I’m ending it with him.”
She paused for a half a second, her eyes shifting to the floor as that registered. I walked back out to the living room and stood at the kitchen island fidgeting. I could hear exactly when Keegan turned the shower off, and my heart started racing as I waited for Jessa.