Restricted Release Read online

  “I want you in me,” I breathed. I felt him closing in on me, positioning himself to enter. Chills tiptoed up and down my spine while Nadia’s blazing-hot mouth continued to lap at me. I feared coming. I craved coming. I was caught in that in-between place where it was all I wanted and exactly what I wanted to avoid. I wanted this to last.

  Matt spread me wide and it was as if I could feel his eyes on me. Studying me and taking in every shade of red, every twitch of skin, every bit of me before him to examine. He slid the tip of his cock along my split but didn’t enter me. How he was holding himself off this way was beyond me. Sheer willpower was all I could think.

  “Please,” I said. Nadia sucked me just then, her lips clinging to the pout of my sex, the tip of her tongue bullying my clitoris. I moaned and remembered how rude I was being. “Please,” I said once more and bowed my head to taste her.

  He waited. He held off until he saw my head dip. My hair fell in a curtain around my face. Matt reached out to brush it back and leaned to the side to watch me lick Nadia’s sweet pussy with eager swipes of my tongue.

  When I suckled at her clit, tasting that hard pink knot of flesh, Matt made a noise of defeat and slid into me. His movements were measured and I could feel in his grip on my hips that he was still holding himself off.

  I was full of him and at her mercy. Caught between the two of them yet again. I surrendered to the feel of his penetration and her lazy moist ministrations. It only took a minute or two for me to start trembling. My fingers buried in the bedding, my face buried between her thighs. It only took a minute more for him to wedge a finger into my bottom and add a whole other sensation to the fray.

  She reached up under me and touched the place where Matt and I were joined. Stroking his cock as it slid in and out of me. I nibbled her clit and almost simultaneously Nadia and I came undone, our orgasms shaking through the bed. Mine from above, hers from below. She tasted the most delicious when she came hard.

  “Over, over,” Matt was saying. His voice came to me through a mind fog but Nadia must have heard first because she was sliding out from under me even as he rolled me over onto my back.

  His face was all intensity and urgency. I let him move me and bend me to his will. He spread my thighs wide and shoved his big hands under my ass. He tilted me the way he needed and then slid into me on one rough thrust. Fully in me, face-to-face, chest-to-chest, he started to move, his motions swaying me like I was on a rocky ocean.

  I caught his shoulders up in my hands, let him kiss me and move his tongue over mine with aggressive, perfect strokes. I felt like he was fucking me twice. Once with his cock, once with his tongue. That realization shook through me, my body grew tight around him, squeezing his thick cock with every thrust of his hips.

  “Jesus, just when I think you can’t feel better,” he said against my throat. I thought his voice so soft that only I could hear.

  “Matt, I’m…” I broke off as a small tentative spasm gripped me. My pussy tightened with a blissful burst of pleasure that came before bigger pleasure. Small but urgent ripples shook me inside and out.

  He groaned.

  “Sorry, sorry,” I said. Meaning that I had lost control. Meaning that I hadn’t held out longer for him.

  “Don’t be sorry,” he said against my ear. “Don’t ever be sorry.” He looked me in the eye, rocking against me, moving his hips in mystical circles so he managed to touch on every bit of me that needed to feel him. When I came, he came with me. Face-to-face, chest-to-chest, heartbeat-to-heartbeat. He never broke eye contact and when the shuddering passed, that was when I realized that I loved him. Really realized it.

  I tried not to cry, but it was damn near impossible. So I turned my head to the window and pulled him close to hug me. So he couldn’t see my face.

  When I looked up, Nadia was studying us. She could see my face. Which meant she could see my soul.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  There weren’t many hours left before dawn and I spent them curled between them. Nadia pressed to my back, her arm draped over my hip. My face buried on Matt’s chest, hearing his heart. I couldn’t sleep though he was out like a light, so I shut my eyes and breathed deeply, the way I’d been taught for anxiety. I forced my body to go slack, trying to slow down my racing mind.

  Nadia must have mistaken my faux meditation for sleep because she whispered to me, starting with, “That was…amazing.” I felt her finger sift through my hair, stroke my shoulder. “And I know I already told you, but I wanted to tell you again that somewhere in this big mess of crazy fun, I’ve fallen for you, Clara. Trust me, it shocked even me.”

  I continued to breathe deeply though human nature dictated I stop and freeze and listen. Instead I just kept doing what I was doing, uncertain of how she would react if she knew I was hearing her.

  “I know you love him. I know I have no shot. Not really. But I wanted to tell you just once more that I love you. Even if you’re asleep.” Her lips brushed my shoulder. “And I won’t be mad if and when you pick him, for the record. Just in case you can hear me in there. I can see how he looks at you. It’s the same way you look at him.”

  One more kiss on the shoulder and she started to breathe heavy. The light in my room was turning periwinkle and I just lay there with my heart breaking. Part of me so unbearably happy, part of me so unbearably sad.

  I roused, unable to play possum anymore, when the sun finally broke through and actual daylight bled through the cracks along my window blinds. We all just looked at each other, exchanged hugs and kisses and then they were getting ready to leave. This unspoken understanding between us was almost surreal. Nearly spooky.

  I walked them down and Nadia hugged me once more, kissing me right on the lips. “That was wow,” she whispered in my ear. It was clear from the way she spoke she felt like this was goodbye.

  I felt like it was too. Not forever, just as lovers. I kissed her back.

  Matt moved in for his turn and pulled me flush against him. My heart sped up and heat flooded my cheeks. “Good morning, Miss Clara,” he whispered against my neck, making my skin tingle. “Call me when you want. You look like you need…thinking time.”

  I nodded, my throat tight. I didn’t want to hurt her. I didn’t want to hurt myself. Feeling aches and pains due to emotions was something I’d like to not feel for a long, long time. “I do.”

  He pressed his mouth to my ear, “I love you. And that’s all I need you to know. I’m not sure how the tough-acting, coffee-swilling girl who I met my first day here made me fall for her…but you did.”

  I laughed. He went down the steps carefully thanks to a new layer of snow. “We’re going to get food, I think. Diner food.” He winked. “Sure you don’t want to come with us?”

  “I’m sure.” Though part of me wanted nothing more than to go eat with them in the early morning hours. Like I did when I was in college and me and my friends had been out all night drinking. But now was time for quiet, for me to think.

  “Okay then. Suit yourself. Me, I’m starving.” He looked up and grinned at me. That grin made my stomach tumble. It was like I was looking at him again for the first time. I remembered the first time I’d seen the kindness in his face and found it humbling.

  “I’ll call you,” I said, my throat catching.

  Nadia was watching me and that guilt came down on me again like a sledgehammer. I waved once, stepped back and shut the door.

  * * * * *

  Very few things weigh as heavy on a body as denying it what it craves.

  I denied myself for four days. Four days was the max I could manage. I dreamt of him. I woke talking to him in my sleep. I lingered by windows and peeked out to try and catch a glimpse but never did. He kept good to his word and his ways as a good man. He let me be. He let me think. And yet his acceptance of me and desire for me seemed to seep through every crack and crevice of my home from his. The very short distance between our homes began to feel as if an ocean separated us.

  The wea
therman predicted snowfall. A big one. “So huddle close to the one you love and ride this out. It’s going to be cold and windy and there might be some power loss.”

  Those words always scared me—power loss. But this time the words that resonated with me were huddle close to the one you love… I texted him with a simple message.

  I LOVE YOU.

  I worried it was the cowardly way to say it. And then I waited. Heart pounding, palms damp. My head felt stuffed full of cotton and the memory of the three of us together tumbled through my head in a wave of memories. They had the feel of dandelion fluff, those memories fragile and somehow ethereal.

  After ten minutes I checked my phone. No answer. A sick feeling of dread settled in my gut. Why hadn’t he answered? Had he changed his mind? Found someone else? Maybe Nadia and Matt had run off, deciding they didn’t need me.

  I stared at the phone, feeling my head buzz with anxiety. I had to calm down. There was a perfectly good explanation, had to be. I ran to the window and looked at his house. Dark. Every window I looked out of regarded a black square of glass in Matt’s home.

  He was out. That was all. But still, why hadn’t he answered? He’d said he loved me. He’d said I could think. And now I tell him that I loved him—bared my soul in a way I couldn’t have imagined mere weeks ago—and nothing. Zip. Nada. Zilch.

  I threw the phone against the wall, immediately regretting it because what if it broke? So I threw the strap-on that had arrived a few days before. The concoction of silicone and leather I’d had such high hopes for.

  Then I laughed so hard I found myself sobbing. Because I’d never used it on anyone. Another thing I failed to follow through with.

  The phone jingled and I dashed to it, but it was simply the phone rebooting from the jarring impact of me using it as a baseball.

  I realized that since Nadia and Matt a great deal of my daily anxiety had abated. Now it was back in spades. God, I hadn’t missed it.

  The first flakes started to drift down, little bits of falling sky clearly visible under the streetlights. I watched, my breath fogging the glass. My eyes welled up but I tried not to cry. This was my own fault. I was the one who’d made him wait. And yet I was crushed when he didn’t hop to like my own little trained bunny rabbit.

  Then I cried again, pressing my face to the window. “God damn pity party,” I sighed. Wishing I was the kind to get drunk or had a vice like smoking. Instead what I did often was not eat. It was then that I realized I had hardly eaten at all that day. A handful of sunflower seeds and some strawberries with coffee did not a meal make.

  I would sit down and I would eat. Not to comfort myself but to deny myself the privilege of starving myself to feel in control. I took my time, like preparing for a special event. A can of tuna, baby pickles, celery, real mayo—I made myself use it. Bibb lettuce layered in a tortilla and then the filling piled on top.

  I rolled the tuna wrap like I was painting the damn ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and then I cut it in half on an angle. The thought of eating might be enough to make me gag but by gum it was going to be pretty.

  At least over the last few days I had managed a trip to the corner store. A glass of pomegranate limeade, some baked chips and I set myself up at the center island. I wouldn’t turn on the computer. I’d sit here with myself and I’d eat.

  I’d think and I’d feel what I was feeling and I would not give in to the temptation of starving myself to feel like I mattered, like I could control things. So even if that was all I got from being with Matt and Nadia—my throat closed up at the thought—I would at least walk away knowing I was stronger than I thought.

  I had it halfway done and thought I might weep with frustration when I heard his back door slam. I was up and at the window in a moment, seeing the lights in his home come on slowly. Through his kitchen window I saw Nadia. I must have missed Matt, unless he was farther back in the room out of eyeshot. Or wasn’t there.

  The snow was thicker and heavier. On first glance a lace curtain appeared to be hanging from the sky. I listened hard and heard that hushed sound that only came with snow.

  “He’s home,” I said. “Maybe.”

  The back door opened and Nadia started down his back steps. Her boots were coated in snow and her dark hair seemed blue under his back porch light. When I realized she was headed my way, I backed up quickly and grabbed my abandoned wrap. When she knocked on my door I almost swallowed my tongue. But I schooled my face and held the wrap like I’d been chowing down. Just a normal heartbroken girl having a dinner alone.

  “Hey,” I said, nibbling.

  She studied me, cocking her eyebrow. I didn’t think she was buying it. “You okay?”

  “Sure. Just eating.”

  “Are you sure about that?” she asked, leaning against the doorjamb and grinning at me.

  “Do you see me eating?” I snapped, wiggling the wrap at her.

  “I see you looking green and holding food.”

  I hmphed at her. “Do you want to come in?”

  “Nah. I have to go before the snow sets in. I figured I’d let you know lover boy is home.”

  “That’s nice.”

  Anger flashed on her face. “I thought you cared about him! What, neither of us is good enough for you, princess?”

  I blinked at her, feeling fire in my cheeks. “What the fuck are you talking about? He shunned me!”

  We were both startled by it. I rarely talked that way and she knew it. But I was so angry. I’d told the man I loved him and he’d ignored me. And now I was the bad guy? No way!

  Nadia laughed and snow swirled inside. She stepped in and shut the door but not all the way. “What do you mean he shunned you? Are you high?”

  “No, I am not high,” I hissed, tossing my wrap onto the plate. I was pissed. “I texted him not a half hour ago and he never answered me.”

  A look of confusion crossed her face, followed swiftly by amusement. “What did it say?”

  I looked down, studied my own feet and then picked at my cuticle. “Ilufoo,” I muttered.

  “What was that now?”

  “I love you!” I yelled, stomping my foot. I had gone from sad and anxious to loud and lunatic. “I texted him that I loved him and he ignored me!”

  She snorted, hanging her head and laughing. “How Lifetime movie of the week is this?” she chuckled.

  “Wha—I…what?”

  “He didn’t answer you because he broke his phone falling on his ass and spraining his ankle.”

  “When?” I yelped.

  “Earlier. Coming over to see if you’d break down and have dinner with him. He told me he couldn’t stand it anymore. But there was ice and well…you’ve seen these iron steps.”

  I nodded, dumbfounded. “So he hurt himself…”

  “Trying to get you to go out with him. So maybe he could let you see what he feels for you. And to give you this,” she said, pulling a paper from her inside coat pocket.

  It was a small 4x4 square of cardstock. He’d drawn us kissing. Very comic book. Very well done. Beautiful, really. The most romantic thing anyone had ever done for me. So I did what any woman would do.

  I cried all over it.

  Nadia snatched it from me and blotted it with a tissue. “Thank God it’s waterproof ink!” she growled. Which made us both laugh.

  “Thanks for bringing it.”

  “Now, that being said, I have to go. I have to beat the snow home. He’s home, he’s wobbly and I came to see if maybe you’d break your silence and go see him. But seeing as you texted him those three little words…I think my work here is done.”

  “You sure you want to go out in this?”

  “We just spent four hours at the emergency care place. I want to go home, take a long bath, drink a lot of wine and watch a bad movie.” She leaned in and kissed my cheek. “Be happy. Make him happy.”

  That was all she said and she was gone.

  “Damn,” I said. Then I went and brushed my teeth. I was totally not go
ing over there to claim my knight in shining armor with tuna breath.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  He called out to me. “Come in!”

  “Hey there. I heard you’re almost as clumsy as me.”

  He sat propped in an antique chair by the back door. He’d put his foot on a stack of moving boxes and looked tired and a bit defeated.

  “I came to whisk you away and instead broke my ass.”

  I knelt and he looked startled but then smiled. His thumb stroked my lower lip and I had to suppress the urge to kiss him just yet. “Are you hurt?” I whispered. Then I rolled my eyes. “I mean, duh, beyond the sprained ankle.”

  “I sprained my ankle, broke my phone and my pride. Plus, I never did get over to see you and plead my case.”

  I gave in. I kissed him. A bare brush of my lips over his but he responded instantly, crushing his generous warm mouth to mine. I had a slight obsession with how nice his lips were for a man. Most women would covet them.

  “What’s your case?” I asked, touching his face, feeling the small bits of stubble rasp against my skin.

  “That you should go out to dinner with me and realize how wonderful I am and maybe even return my feelings.”

  “Feelings? You mean the ones where you told me you love me?” I asked, kissing his jaw where I’d just touched.

  My body revved hot and eager, my heart pounding. I was here and I was going to do this. And I was going to be…happy. I’d give myself that chance. To break out of my self-made prison and try life again. It was so staggering I was dizzy with it.

  “Yes,” he said. He pulled back to look me in the eye as he spoke. It was such a noble quality, his need for me to see his emotions in his eyes as much as hear them from his mouth. “I do love you. I know it’s scary and it makes no sense and we just spent weeks playing sex games, for lack of a better word…but for as weird and unconventional and strange as it all is…it’s true.”

  I nodded once and pulled my phone out. “I want you to see what I sent you while you were apparently being bandaged and drugged and your phone was lying broken at the bottom of your back steps.”