Exquisite betrayal, p.21
Exquisite Betrayal, page 21
I pull her up and off the car, spin her around and bend her over the hood. “Hang on, love.” I thrust home and it’s so damn good this way… so deep.
“You good?” I don’t ever want it to be too much or too rough for her.
“Oh, yeah,” she pants. “More than good.”
I give her all I’ve got and she’s loud. Real loud. My arm goes around her and I find her clit. I need her to come for me again because I’m not going to last much longer with her ass pounding against me and her voice calling out my name like that.
“Babe, you gotta come for me.”
“Ah, yeah. I’m close.”
If anyone came by right now, I’m sure they’d think we were killing each other with the racket we’re making, yet it’s pure pleasure for both of us.
There comes her hand on my arm, fingers digging in hard, and doesn’t that just make me soar.
“Ah… ah… yeah.” And there it is, the clenching of her against me and I’m there, groaning my ass off, bent over her. When we’re both finished, I’m reluctant to pull out. I don’t want to move. I kiss her neck, her cheek, anywhere my lips can reach because I’m in paradise right now.
“Shit, Fallon. What you do to me. Love, I’m…” I’m speechless is what I am. I stand up, pulling her with me. We need to clean up. I wonder if I have a towel in my car.
“We need a towel.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
“Don’t pull out or…”
“I know, love.”
Then we both laugh. “What if someone comes?”
I laugh even harder. “Don’t you think we should’ve thought of that before we ever started this?”
“I guess,” she says.
“Stand on my feet,” I tell her. She does and we shuffle to the boot of the car. Thankfully, I find a towel stashed back there. I step away from her, turn her around and bend down to clean her up.
“What are you doing?” She’s totally embarrassed.
“Cleaning you up.”
She tries to grab the towel from me.
“Fallon, stop.”
“No. You can’t do that.”
I grab her chin and force her to look at me. “Why ever not? Most of it’s from me. And besides, my mouth goes down on you all the time. What’s the big deal?”
“I—I don’t know. It’s weird.”
“Only because you’re letting it be weird. I think it’s totally sexy.”
“You do?”
“Of course I do. As is this.” I slide a finger into her.
“Mmmm.”
“See. That’s the same place all this comes from. So cleaning you up should really be my job, you know. I did make the mess after all.”
“I helped.”
“You caused it. You and your errant ways.”
She laughs and her discomfort passes.
“Now kiss me.” We hear a car in the distance so I tell her, “You’d better get in the car first. I’d hate for whoever is about to get here to see your lovely, naked ass.”
She hops in the car like a rabbit and I laugh as I zip up my pants and close the boot.
We check into the spa and head for our first treatment, a couples massage. It’s very relaxing, but all I can think about is Fallon being naked under her sheet. I wish the massage therapists would simply leave us alone in here so we could play a little. I realize I need to tame my thoughts because, when they roll me on my back, my dick’s going to be making a pup tent out of the sheet over me.
The dopey expression on Fallon’s face when we’re finished is priceless. I want to both laugh and kiss her at the same time.
“Need a nap?”
“I’m jelly. Or noodley.”
“Noodley?”
“Yep. Legs are like noodles. Will you carry me?”
I swoop her up in my arms and she laughs. “I was kidding Ryland. People are staring.” She makes a point of calling me that in public, as we discussed.
Glancing around, I notice we are indeed catching looks from others. I grin and announce, “My beautiful girlfriend can’t walk because her massage has made her legs wobbly.” My statement earns a few chuckles from those that hear.
Fallon’s face is now hot pink and matches her toenails. My grin widens. “I took you seriously. You ready for some lunch and wine tastings?”
“Sure. But, can you put me down?”
“Maybe. Or maybe I’ll just carry you there.”
Now she’s laughing, too.
I finally set her down and she swats me on my arse.
We head on out to lunch and then we’re off on an afternoon of tastings. It’s a gorgeous day and we plan to end it back in the town of Sonoma where we’ll be eating dinner in a quaint restaurant. So we go to our room to change without a whole lot of time, making us sort of in a rush.
The town is small and the restaurant is close enough that we can walk, therefore we stroll arm and arm to dinner.
And then it happens. The impossible. I never thought it would, but it does.
“Ryland? Is that you?” I hear my name and turn to see her. Tall, thin and blond, she’s as beautiful as she ever was. Her smile plows into me like the train that killed my parents. It’s been years, however I feel the blood drain from my face and everything shifts in my world.
“Oh my God, it’s really you!” she says.
Fallon is squeezing my hand, as if to ask whether I’m okay. I can’t speak for a second, so I nod. Finally I say, “Hello, Iris.”
She runs and hugs me. I’ve no choice except to release Fallon’s hand and hug her back. She smells the same, like vanilla, and she clings to me like she doesn’t want to let me go. So I keep hugging her back because I don’t know what else to do. It’s completely awkward for me. I try to look at Fallon, but Iris’s head is blocking my view. I finally have the sense to disengage her arms and step back from her. My head is swimming and I don’t know why. I can’t understand all these strange feelings that are hitting me.
“Iris, I want you to meet Fallon McKinley. Fallon, this is Iris.” They shake hands and exchange a brief greeting. Fallon’s face looks wounded. I know she’s feeling the odd one out in all of this. Hell, so am I.
“So what are you doing here?” Iris asks.
“We’re here for a getaway weekend.”
“Ah, great choice. I live here now. I’m an artist trying to make it and I thought, well, this would be a great place to sell my stuff.”
“I see.” I don’t know what else to say.
“So what about you?”
“I live in San Francisco.”
“Great. That’s so close.”
She’s talking like we’re still great friends or something. “Yeah, not far. Well, we need to get to our dinner reservation.”
“Oh, well, have fun then.”
“Thanks.”
She launches herself at me again and says, “It’s so great to see you. I’ve missed you Ryland. So much. Let’s meet soon, okay? For drinks, or you know.” She does this little wiggle thing.
I don’t know what to say, so I just nod and say, “Sure.”
I turn away from her then Fallon and I continue on our way.
We walk to the restaurant in silence. She doesn’t say a thing and I’m baffled. I don’t understand why she’s angry. Did I do something wrong? I’m so damn confused that I can barely eat.
When we head back to the hotel, we’re like two robots getting ready for bed. And when we get in, I have my answer as she rolls to the other side. She doesn’t touch me or say a word, although I can hear her sobs and see her body shaking.
“Fallon, we have to talk.” I move to touch her and she jerks from me like I’ve burned her. “Please. Talk to me.”
Her voice is tiny and muffled, as if she’s holding back painful tears. “You ignored me in front of her. You acted like I was your afterthought, just a casual someone you happened upon, and it killed me. It’s still killing me. Do you want her, Ryland Thomas?”
I’m trying to process what she is saying. Did I do that to her? In my shock of seeing Iris, maybe I did. That certainly wasn’t my intention. My gravest error comes when I don’t immediately respond to her question. It isn’t because I want Iris. I don’t. She was never true to me. Had never been. Fallon is. I never had the kinds of feelings for Iris that I have for Fallon.
As I ponder all of this, she mistakes my silence for something completely different. She gets out of the bed and walks into the bathroom where she softly shuts the door. Her sobs rip into me like a Sawzall, tearing me into bits.
I’m flying after her, knocking on the door. “Fallon, let me in. I don’t want her. I want you. I was thinking about what you said. That’s why I didn’t answer you. I love you and only you. I’ll only ever love you, no matter what. Iris was a shock, that’s all. Please let me in.” Nothing other than those awful sobs greet me. I’m a lost soul and don’t know what to do. I slide down the wall and stay in front of the bathroom door all night long while sleep evades me.
In the morning, I hear the door open and she nearly trips over me when she comes out. “Fallon, we have to talk this out. I don’t want her. She shocked me, yes. And blindsided me. But I never intended to hurt you. I would rather take a bullet than hurt you. When you asked me last night if I wanted her, the answer is a resounding no. I would never want her. The reason it took me so long to answer you was that I was processing how you said I’d treated you like an afterthought. I’m so sorry I acted like that. It wasn’t intentional. You’re not an afterthought. You’re the most important person in the world to me. Do you understand me? Please say you do. I’m a desperate man and I’ll do anything right now to make you see that.”
“But why did you act that way?” Her face is puffy from crying and her eyes are red with purple half moons beneath them.
“I don’t know. Seeing her hit me out of the blue. I haven’t laid eyes on her since the day I threw her out. And then seeing her there, after all that time, I suppose I thought I’d feel something, anything, but I didn’t. There was nothing there at all. Do you really think I’d want someone like her? Fallon, call me a wanker. Call me whatever, but don’t close me out like that. Your crying was like acid on a wound to me when all I wanted to do was hold you and tell you it would be okay, but I couldn’t get to you. Please don’t turn away from me. Please.”
She examines me, her eyes clawing into me, and then she drops down next to me and sits there, in silence.
I reach for her, but she shrinks from me. Her voice is raw when she speaks and it bludgeons me. I’ll take physical pain over emotional pain any day. Physical pain is real; it’s there. You know and understand the source. Emotional pain is a whole different beast. It bashes you in every vulnerable body part without mercy, over and over, leaving you defenseless with your guts exposed. Then it keeps on coming until you’ve nothing left to destroy.
“When you dropped my hand to hug her back and you didn’t let go of her, I died a very painful death inside. It was something I’ll never forget. I felt betrayed and I wanted to walk away from you right then, and would have, but I had nowhere to go.”
“Oh, God, Fallon. I didn’t mean for that to happen. I know it looked bad, but that’s not how it was at all. I didn’t know what to do with her. She acted like we were best pals and I kept thinking, ‘What the fuck!’ I’m stupid, okay. I know it. I just wasn’t prepared for it.” I pull her into my lap even though she struggles against me. “This is what I want. Always. Right here. Like this. Forever and without end. You, Fallon. It’s always been you and it will always be you.”
She finally burrows into me, and her hand creeps up on my chest. I know she’s crying, but she’s not sobbing anymore. I pet her hair and rub her back. I’ll do anything for her not to hurt this way.
“Let’s go to sleep, love.” She nods. I stand and then pick her up to carry her to bed. I pull her on top of me where she always sleeps and we fall hard, wrapped up in each other.
I really thought it was the end for us, yet when I walk out of the bathroom and he tells me everything, first I want to kick him in the balls until they’re swollen and blue, then I drop into his lap and want to just stay there. I’m so damn weak from crying all night, I can’t even think anymore. Is it just me or is he the dumbest thing alive? I mean, really? Right now, I need sleep and then I’ll deal. When he suggests it, I don’t have the strength to say no.
I’m not sure what time it is when I wake up. All I know is Ryland Thomas’s arms are holding me tight and things feel right again.
He’s awake. “You slept okay?”
“Uh-huh. What time is it?”
“Five.”
“In the afternoon?”
“Yep.”
“Shit. A lost day.” My fists are balled up as they rub my eyes.
“Not for me. I got to hold you in my arms.”
I inhale, smelling him. He always smells good, no matter what. My hand reaches for his face. I love to rub his scruff. I don’t like for him to shave because I think he’s adorably sexy with that bit of beard he wears. He traps my hand against his face and says, “Fallon, tell me we’re okay. I need to hear you say it.”
“We’re okay, but don’t ever do anything like that to me again. Understand?”
“Never.” His voice cracks. “In a million years.”
I’m still pissed at him, however I can’t go through life not speaking or pouting. That isn’t my way. My dad would always say to me, “If you’re angry about something, spit it out. Don’t walk around in a huff. I’m not a mind reader.” That was one of his pieces of advice he’d fed to me, the ones I’d gobble up like chocolate covered candy. He was full of them and I think it was because he didn’t want me to turn out like my mom. His biggest one was, “Fallon, don’t ever lie, honey. You can get yourself in a much bigger jam when you create a lie. It’s easier to take an honest punishment than it is to take a deceitful path.” He was right. I tried it one time, and my story got so discombobulated, I couldn’t remember what I said. Boy did I get in big trouble; for lying mainly, but also for trying to cover up the bad that I’d done.
“What are you thinking?”
“The honest truth?”
“Yep.”
“That you’re filled with all sorts of dumbassery.”
His body shakes with laughter and I shake my head. “I’m serious. How can you behave like that and not think my feelings aren’t going to get hurt? Buddy, you’d better start growing a brain and fast.”
“I don’t think the brain thing is the problem. It’s thinking fast on my feet when I’m thrown a curve ball. I’m really terrible at it. I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with it more than your fair share. How can I make it up to you?”
At least he is taking the blame and not cowering away from it. That is a good thing. “By not repeating this. When we’re out together and we run into an old flame, put your goddamn arm around me and act like I mean something to you. Got it?”
He rubs his face. “Yeah, loud and clear. But I don’t have any more old flames. You met the one and only.”
“Well, good. Then if we’re out and about tonight and we run into her, act like I mean something to you then, okay?”
“You mean everything to me, Fallon.”
“Actions speak louder than words, Ryland Thomas. Show her then.”
“Got it.” There was an edge to his voice this time, but I didn’t care. He can get all pissy with me for all I care. I’m in the right and he knows it. He moves to get out of bed.
“Where are you going?”
He stops and looks at me for a second and then sighs. “Thought I’d take a shower.”
“What? Without me? Like hell you are.”
He gazes at me for a second. Then the corners of his mouth lift slightly and his lids half cover his eyes, indicating he’s completely on board with this.
“I’ve always heard make-up sex is the best. You owe me some damn good make-up sex, Sinclair, and I plan on collecting.” I stand, plant my hand on my hip and stare at him.
He doesn’t say a word, rather he stalks towards me and the heat is rushing from him now. He drops his boxers and I’m happy to see what’s waiting for me. My shirt is gone in a whoosh and then his hands are under the elastic band of my thong panties. He doesn’t take them off. He snaps them off, ruining them. My mouth forms an O and his tongue is in it before I know what’s happening. His hand is in my tangled hair as he pulls my head back. I’m lifted up and he impales me as he turns and slams my back against the wall.
“Ah, ah, ah…” is all I can say against his mouth as he sinks into me over and over. It’s rough, hard and fast, and I’m spinning out of control. I take his lower lip, biting down on him. My nails scratch his skin, drawing blood on his shoulders, but he doesn’t notice. He’s intent on one thing and one thing only. My heels dig into the cheeks of his ass and he presses on, going deeper every time.
“Come on, Fallon. Come for me,” he growls. It’s a demand, urgent and harsh, as my back is jammed against the wall.
My teeth gouge the flesh of his shoulder. I know I’ve hurt him because he flinches, but I don’t care. “Faster,” I goad him on. He complies and then it happens.
I scream, yes, scream his name. I think I’m telling him to fuck me, too. I don’t really know because I’m having one hell of a ride right now and I must say I’m not thinking properly. I hear him groan, and can feel the vibrations in his throat as its right against my shoulder and he’s coming all over the place. When we’re finished, we gaze at each other for what seems like an eternity.
“They’re right,” I whisper as I kiss him. My hands cup the roughness of his cheeks. I can’t pull my eyes off his.
