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“That’s not all it is!”

I stopped, my hand on the newel post of his stairs. There were half a dozen retorts, but none of them made it past my tongue. At the bottom, the smooth banister shoved a splinter into my palm and I muttered a curse as I plucked it free. That would teach me, I thought as I let myself out of his house and onto the street, where the cab was already waiting.

Chapter 05

Daylight teased the sky by the time I made it home. I paid the cabdriver and ignored the way he ogled my thighs when I stepped onto the curb. I didn’t want to be sorry I’d gone to bed with Austin even though I’d said I wouldn’t. The sex had been too good, as good as it can be only with someone who already knows you, but I’d started a new life, with a new job and a new apartment, in a new city. I wanted new habits, too, and Austin was definitely not one of those.

I wanted a man who’d gone to college. Who had a career, not a job. One who owned a car and paid bills on time and wore clothes that matched. A professional man, not one who smoked and drank and cheated, or one who’d run up the credit card and skipped out into the night without leaving a note. Not one who wrecked my car because he didn’t have one of his own.

I wanted a man, not a boy in a man-suit.

You’re unfair to me, Austin had accused me more than once. I’m not like those guys.

Those guys. The men my mother dated. No, he wasn’t like those guys. At least not mostly. But I’d always been waiting for him to turn into one. Maybe he was right and I’d been unfair, but he’d done his share of shitty things even when he knew they’d hurt me. Hell. I’d done the same.

My heels sounded very loud on the marble tile as I passed the front desk, empty at this hour. I’d occupied the elevator alone, dressed to kill, more times than I could count on both hands. Tonight, because I knew I looked ridden hard and put away wet, a hand shoved its way through the doors just before they closed, and I had to share it.

“Thanks,” said that man I’d seen before. “I’m too tired for the stairs.”

He slouched, eyes half lidded, in the corner opposite and just behind mine. His shoulders lifted with a sigh that became a yawn, prompting one from me I hid behind my hand. He looked at me with a half smile. Conscious of the fact I was sure my lipstick was smeared and my eyeliner smudged, I smiled back. We both turned to face the front, but I felt the weight of his gaze on me, could see him looking from the corner of my eye. Unlike before, this time he wasn’t too distracted to notice me. When I turned my face, just slightly, he was studiously watching the blinking white numbers showing the elevator’s progress.

I had to bite my lower lip against a smile. He was seriously eye-fucking me. Who doesn’t get off on being noticed?

It took a very long time, it seemed, to reach the first floor. He moved past me without touching me, but my skin prickled as though he had. He stepped out of the elevator and I let out the breath I’d been holding. I’d seen him twice now. Three times? It must have been the charm, because unlike all the others, this time he was the one who looked back.

“I missed you.”

I’m already diving into Austin’s arms when he says it. A week was too long to be away from him. His parents had taken him from me, stolen him to go to visit family for a funeral. At nineteen, he’s plenty old enough to stay by himself, but they’d insisted he go along to pay his respects. I think it’s more like they don’t want us fucking our way through every room in the house while they’re away, but I can’t blame them. They’d have been right. I wouldn’t have felt comfortable going along, even if they had invited me, but a week is an eternity in the summer when the only thing I have to look forward to is long hours with Austin’s mouth on mine.

His arms slip around me, hold me tight, and his hands run down my back to grip my ass. Nobody’s watching, and would I care if they were? I’m just so frigging glad he’s home, it’s worth the risk of parental discovery to have him squeezing me. His cock nudges my belly.

He really did miss me.

“I brought you something.”

“What?” I already have my hands out, expecting a snow globe, a T-shirt. A magnet, maybe. Something he picked up in the Pennsylvania Turnpike gift shop.

Austin hands me a small box with a lid. Inside it is a package of paper, not note cards but stationery. I lift a page and hold it to the light. It’s soft on my fingertips and has a faint design of flowers pressed into the paper. I give him a look.

How did he know?

“It reminded me of you.” Austin gives an awkward shrug, as if his admission embarrasses him. “You like that sort of thing.”

I do. Tablets and note cards and pretty papers. I always have, but this is the first time someone’s ever noticed or given me something as pretty as this. “I love it.”

“When’s your mom getting home?”

My mom’s been working weird shifts at the Hershey plant since she got pregnant. Because it’s summer, her brother Lane is home from college and taking over the shop, and I’ve been putting in more than my share of hours there, too. I haven’t seen her much. I’m not sure if she’s avoiding me, but I know I’m trying not to hang around her too much. She’s only got another month or so before she pops, and I can’t even begin to imagine what’s going to happen then.

“Late.” I snuggle closer, my knee going between his and my cheek fitting just right into the place over his heart.

Austin pushes me so he can grin down into my face. “Good.”

The apartment isn’t big enough to make the chase much of an effort, but we manage to work up a sweat as I dodge his grip and duck behind the big wooden rocking chair to keep out of his grasping hands. Not that I don’t want to be caught. Just that it’s fun to make him catch me.

When he does, his mouth slants over mine, his tongue probing deep inside. He’s got me so hot already. Hot for him. His hand goes straight between my legs, no fooling around now, and he cups my pussy through my thin cotton shorts.

The rocking chair, set in motion by our mock struggle, bumps my ass as we kiss. I grab the back of it to still it, then push Austin from my mouth and shuck out of my shorts. I’m wearing the tiny bikini panties he likes, but those go, too.

I lift my T-shirt up over my breasts, no bra covering them, and settle into the chair. I spread my legs. He’s watching, jaw slack and eyes gleaming. He doesn’t move.

He’s eaten me out before, though I’ve never asked him to. It’s always just…happened. But it’s all I’ve been thinking about for the past week, his mouth and tongue and fingers fucking me until I come. Every night while he was gone I’d lie in bed, eyes wide open to the dark, and imagine him there with me. I’d pretend my fingers were his tongue, flicking my clit or sliding inside me, but it was never the same.

My friend Kira says her boyfriend won’t go down on her. Not ever. He’s all about the blow jobs but refuses to dine at the Y. He’s a pussy about eating pussy. I’d break up with a guy who expected me to suck cock but wouldn’t return the favor, but Kira says she’s in love. I think she just doesn’t know what love is.

Austin’s friends, the guys from the football team and the men he works with at his dad’s construction company, would probably say they don’t go down on their girlfriends, either. I wonder how many are telling the truth? I wonder if Austin tells them about me, if men talk about their sex lives in the same detail I do with my friends. I wonder if he’d admit he makes me come with his face between my legs, or if he’d deny it.

“Austin.” My voice is low and slow, almost not mine. His gaze jerks up. I put my hands on my inner thighs and open myself wider to his sight. “Use your mouth on me.”

He’s already on his knees before I finish. I gasp when his hot, wet mouth finds my skin. When his tongue strokes over my clit, I grip the arms of the chair and toss back my head, my back arching. It feels so good it almost hurts. The chair rocks me into his mouth again and again as he licks and kisses and sucks. When he puts a finger inside me, then two, I come hard with a strangled shout.

I look down at him. He’s smiling, full of himself. I touch his hair and want to tell him how much I love him, but something about the way he’s looking at me makes me suddenly shy. I want to close my legs, but his head is resting on my thigh and I can’t without pushing him away.

“What?” I sound nervous, because I am. “What are you looking at?”

“You.” Austin kisses my thigh.

I push him onto his back on the floor and straddle his legs until I can get his belt open and his pants down. His cock springs free, nice and thick. I take it in my hand and stroke. He’s already got a little pre-come dripping, and I lean forward to taste him.

“Fuck!” His hips jerk and his hand tangles in my hair. “Paige, God.”

“What?” I want to put him inside me, but we don’t have any condoms handy and there’s no way I’ll go bareback.

“Nobody…”

I frown and sit back on my heels, my grip tightening on his prick. “Nobody what?”

What the hell did he get up to while he was away?

“Nobody does this like you,” Austin says.

He thinks he’s giving me a compliment, but I let him go and grab up my shorts. I make sure to grab my panties, too. Don’t want to leave them on the floor for my mom to find. “Nobody, who?”

“Huh?” He lifts his head to stare, then sits when he sees my expression. “What’s the matter?”

I stab the air with my finger. My throat is tight when I swallow, and I blink away the burn of tears. “Nobody does what like me? Suck cock? Nobody, who? Who else is sucking your dick, Austin?”

“Nobody,” he says and must realize how it sounds, because he scrambles to his feet to come after me when I stalk down the hall to my tiny bedroom at the back of the apartment. “That’s not what I meant, baby.”