Out on Good Behavior (Radleigh University Book 3) (15 page)

“I want to,” I tell her. “So fucking much.”

“Well, it’s mutual.” She rises to her knees and puts her delicate hands on my shoulders. “So why are we still talking?”

I want to speak, but I can’t. It’s as if she reached into my chest cavity and squeezed my heart in her little hands. But she’s right.

We don’t need to talk anymore.

I bury my hands in her hair and close the distance between us, the distance I never want there to be again. She walks back on her knees without moving her mouth from mine, and I follow until she’s lying back against my pillows and I’m above her, tasting, touching, inhaling her honey-citrus scent until it’s imprinted on my brain.

She’s so soft—her lips, her skin, that fucking lingerie. I kiss my way to her jaw and suckle down her throat, every one of her breathy sighs and moans hitting me where it hurts. My jeans are the denim prison of romance novels, but I can’t make myself stop touching her long enough to take them off. I slide my hands down her fine-boned shoulders to the perfect handfuls of her breasts, and she arches into my palms with a gasp.

The sounds she makes are the sexiest part, a constant reminder of how new this is to her, confirmation I can make her feel damn good. I hear it in her whimpers when I drag my tongue along the edge of the cups of her corset, her groans when my thumbs seek out her nipples through the satin and she unconsciously rocks her hips against mine. But I want more, always more. She is so beautiful and lying right here for me and I don’t want her covered by my hands, by my body. What a waste.

Suddenly, I’m struck with inspiration. I pull back reluctantly and give her lower lip a little love bite before sitting up and climbing off the bed. “Come here.”

She blinks up at me dizzily. “You want to go somewhere now?”

“Just trust me.”

She takes the hand I hold out to her and stands, letting me drag her over to the full-length mirror in the corner of my room. I wrap my arms around her from behind and press my lips to the back of her shoulder, our eyes meeting in the reflecting glass. “Look at you,” I rasp, taking her in from her beautiful blond head to the pink nail polish on her perfect little toes, and every satin-and-lace-wrapped curve in between. “Look how fucking stunning you are. I didn’t want to miss it.”

She doesn’t say anything, though she flushes in some choice places, and I smile against the back of her neck before covering it with gentle kisses. My arms are still around her, one hand over her heart, feeling her pulse race beneath lazily trailing fingers.

And then I slowly trace my tongue down her spine.

“Oh, God,” she breathes, her eyelids fluttering shut.

“Keep them open. Watch me.”

She does. She opens her eyes and fixes them on the reflective glass as I suck her neck while I palm her breasts, squeezing gently, then not so gently. Every now and again, she sways on her feet with a moan, but I keep her steady and watch her watching me.

Then I slide a hand down down down the smooth satin. Her breath hitches as I trace a finger along the smooth strip of skin between her corset and matching panties, and I force myself to be patient, even though every ounce of my being is dying to know if she’s as wet as I think she is. “Sam?” I whisper, still kissing whatever skin I can reach—shoulders, arms, that long, slender neck.

“Touch me,” she whispers back without hesitation. “Please, please touch me.”

Jesus fucking Christ.
My hand obeys as if of its own volition, sliding beneath the waistband, and oh my fuck she is soaked. My fingers glide right over her clit, and she trembles under the touch.

I maneuver her forward until we’re so close to the mirror her breath is fogging the glass, and she puts her hands up on the walls on either side of it to brace herself. A little of the tension drains from her body, but only for a moment before I slide my hand back through her wetness, grazing her clit in light circles.

“What are you doing to me, Francesca?” she utters desperately as I stroke harder, faster. “How can anything feel this good?”

“Oh, sweetheart, you have no idea.” I slip into the cup of her corset, gliding over the softest bare skin, and squeeze, aching to feel her nipples hard and tight against my palm. She doesn’t disappoint, arching with a whimper while my other hand speeds up over her clit. I want to be inside her, want to devour her, but I wouldn’t change what we’re doing right now for anything. Not with the way her eyes have gone wild, or the way her moving with my hand has her ass grinding against me. Not when her golden skin is growing flushed and damp, her hair mussed just enough to suggest she’s been gently fucked. “This is only the beginning.”

As I say the words, though, I realize they’re not true. This isn’t the beginning. I’ve been crazy about this girl for months. I’ve been dreaming of touching her like this since the moment I saw her a year earlier. This started so long before now, and there is a lifetime left to go.

But right now? I want to see her finish.

I slip down further, sliding a finger inside her easily, though she’s so tight a second would probably be a stretch. She sucks in a sharp breath, and I grind my palm against her clit until she gasps out a moan that turns me to liquid. I keep my eyes on the mirror, progressively gentling the hand fucking her until her cries and shuddering taper off into a whimper. Then I ease out, missing her soft, wet warmth the instant I’ve lost it.

“Oh my God,” she whispers. Her knees are buckling, and I squeeze her tight to hold her steady. Once she’s focused again, I wait until her eyes are watching me, then suck my finger down to the last knuckle.

“Francesca.”

I keep her staring at me until I’ve licked off the very last trace of her. “Yes?”

“I am going to pass out.”

I smile and draw her back to the bed, aglow in the presence of her complete and total contentment and the knowledge I’m the one who put her in that state.

I’m also horny as fuck.

She looks like she wants to sleep for a year, so I debate leaving her for a few minutes to take care of myself, but before I can even open my mouth to suggest it, I feel a light touch grazing my belly, then a gentle tug at the button of my jeans. “May
I
?”

Two softly spoken words and I am on fire, arching off the bed into those delicate hands. I watch her slender fingers work the button, then the zipper, and then she’s between my legs, tugging the jeans down and off.

On her knees, her blond hair streaming over her shoulders, she makes a gorgeous picture I’ll recall on many future lonely nights. Only one thing could make her more perfect right now. I sit up, brushing my lips over hers while my hands snake around her back to the tips of the ribbon keeping her corset in place. “May I?”

“Uh huh.”

I do, and the garment falls away, leaving smooth golden skin and small, beautiful tits in its wake. I press a kiss to each while my fingers dance up her spine, and her body shuddering under mine is exquisite.

I could keep going like this for hours—touching, kissing, tasting, sucking—but Samara clearly has other plans. She pushes me back to the pillows and follows me down, her tongue sweeping over my lips. I reach up to cup her head so I can kiss her more deeply, but she slips out of my grasp before I can, kissing my neck, down my throat, along my collarbone.

I let my eyelids flutter closed as her lips continue downward, over my breasts and down my torso in slow, luxurious kisses that spare no tongue. She may never have done this before but her every move exudes a confidence and certainty that reminds me with every touch why I am utterly crazy about her.

There isn’t even a moment’s hesitation when she reaches my thong and keeps on kissing the damp lace. When there’s nowhere left to go, she picks her head up just enough that her breath kisses my clit through the fabric. I inhale deeply to try to stay in control, but the scent of sex is so heavy in the air I can taste it.

She hooks her fingers into the waistband and slides the thong down my legs, unconsciously biting her lip as she does. It’s so fucking sexy it hurts to look at her, and I brace myself for her touch, expecting gentle, experimental.

I
don’t
expect her to put her mouth right back where it was, that gentle touch courtesy of her catlike tongue instead. “
Fuck
. Sam.” I grip the sheets like a lifeline, panting, my grasp on the fabric the only thing keeping me from thrusting a hand in the gorgeous hair swirling over my thighs so I can keep her there forever. “You don’t have to do that.”

She picks her head up, the distress on her beautiful face pinging my heart. “Am I doing something wrong?”

“Fuuuuck no,” I assure her, my laugh turning breathless as she slides her hands up my thighs, her thumbs parting me, stroking with a painful slowness. “I just…if you want to go slower…”

“You really don’t get it, do you?” Her eyes meet mine, and where they’re usually tiger-like in color only, now they’re fierce and feral. “How long I’ve been fantasizing about this?”

“Going down on a girl?”

“Going down on
you
.” She slides a finger inside me, and my eyelids flutter closed. “Your thirty days may have been the right idea, but I’ve been wondering what you taste like ever since.” She slides a second finger in easily, and I writhe greedily against her hand, so, so close. “So, if you want me to stop, I will, but—”

“I’m gonna come the second your tongue touches me,” I warn her.

“No, you won’t.” She kisses the inside of one thigh, then the other, going higher and higher until she reaches damp skin. Then she touches just the tip of her tongue to my clit, and smiles. “Never has Frankie ever.”

I’m so lost in my lust haze, I have no idea what she’s talking about. I make some unintelligible noise.

“That first game of ‘Never Has Frankie Ever.’ I finally found out whether you were kidding about getting that piercing.”

“Disappointed?”

“Nah.” She strokes me delicately with a fingertip, her other hand moving in and out in relaxed rhythm. “I don’t like the taste of metal much. The taste of
you
, on the other hand…”

There’s nothing I can do but groan as she dips her head back down to circle my clit with her tongue and proceeds to show me just how much she means it. She’s slow and delicate, as if she’s still getting comfortable, and the feathery touches are short-circuiting my brain. I want her to go at her own pace, but the superhuman effort of not writhing against her tongue is making me break into a sweat.

Faster
, my brain is screaming.
Harder. Fuck me fuck me fuck me.
I bite my lip so I don’t scream it, claw the sheets so I don’t bury my hands in her hair. This is heaven and hell all rolled into one, and if she were anyone else I would reach down and take matters into my own hands. But I don’t want to scare her off, or make her think this isn’t—

Oh, fuck, I think she figured it out all on her own.

When she picks up both the speed and pressure of her fingers and tongue, it takes less than a minute before I succumb to the mind-blowing white light of an orgasm that rocks me to my bones. When I finally sigh into nothing but a gelatinous mass, I pull her up on the bed with me and kiss her until there’s nothing left of me on her tongue.

“Wow,” she says sleepily as she curls in at my side. “So that’s what all the fuss is about.”

“Mmhmm.” I can barely keep my eyes open, but the image behind my lids is pretty great.

“I think I’m a fan.”

Welcome to the club
, I try to say, but it comes out as a murmur as I drift off to sleep on the scent of sex and orange blossoms.

I awaken to an empty bed.

I usually do, so the realization that this time it feels wrong slams into me like a lightning bolt. The absence of soft skin pressed into my side chills me with goose bumps, and I slip out of bed and pull on a pair of boxers and a hoodie before stepping out into the living room.

It’s a relief to spot Samara immediately, sitting on the sofa wrapped in a blanket and cupping a mug of what I assume is tea, staring out the sliding patio doors at the pouring rain pelting the glass. I climb up behind her and wrap an arm around her waist while kissing the side of her neck. “Hey.”

“Hey. Hope it’s okay I made myself some tea.”

“Of course. Sorry I don’t have vanilla. It’s harder to find than you’d think.”

She doesn’t respond, and it strikes me then that she hasn’t turned to look at me, let alone kiss me. She hasn’t leaned into my one-armed hug, or even touched the skin wrapped around her.

New as I am to relationships, I know something’s going on that is not good. “Everything okay?” I ask, even though I’m not sure I want the answer.

“Yeah. Just thinking.” She takes a sip from her mug, and I wonder if it’s still hot. I have no idea what time it is, no idea how long I slept, no idea how long she did. Finally, she turns around, moving out of my grip. “We should talk.”

Suddenly, I envy her blanket and tea, because I am growing very, very cold. “Okay.”

“I just want to say that…I’m sorry,” she says, those beautiful eyes meeting mine with an unblinking gaze.

She’s
sorry? After I accidentally coma’d myself out of our date? “Sam—”

“No, please, let me finish.” She puts her mug down on the coffee table and I think maybe now she’ll take my hands, but she doesn’t; instead she starts picking at a thread on Lizzie’s chenille blanket draped across her lap. “I’m sorry I put so much pressure on us being a capital-T Thing. On sex. On everything. I didn’t get it. Now I finally feel like I do, and I realize I’ve been such an idiot.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask slowly. “Get what?”

“That sex is
fun
,” she says with a faint smile. “That being with someone doesn’t have to be this dramatic, all-serious, epic…whatever. I get why you didn’t want to limit yourself to one person. And I’ve been putting all this pressure on
myself
to do that, too, but you never have and you…” She laughs, but there doesn’t seem to be any joy in it. “Well, you’ve always seemed way happier than I ever have, so clearly you’ve had the right idea.”

She couldn’t have stunned me more if she’d slapped me across the face. This is everything I wanted her to feel that first night we kissed, but now? Now that I’ve spent the past month pushing myself toward the conclusion that she’s the only one I want, now she wants to see other people? To
sleep with
other people?

If there’s one thing I came away with after having sex with Samara, it’s that I’d be plenty happy with her being the only person in my bed for the foreseeable future.

What went wrong that she came away from it with the exact opposite feeling?

“Was…was it bad for you?” I splutter, because it’s all I can think, even though the words don’t feel right at all. I know she enjoyed it, in more ways than one. What the fuck did I do wrong?

“No! God, no. Frankie. Come on. You were there, right? You can’t possibly think that.” She frowns. “Unless you—”

“Nope,” I say firmly. “I guarantee you there are no complaints on my end.”

I cannot even believe I am having this conversation. What the fuck
is
this conversation? Why are we affirming to each other that what was obviously mind-blowingly incredible sex was mind-blowingly incredible sex? Is this yet another relationship thing I was unaware of?

God, no wonder I’ve been so damn averse to these things.

“Okay.” She picks up her mug again. I guess she needs something new to do with her hands. Funny—I thought we had some nice options covered. “It’s the opposite of that, really. It’s like…it opened me up.” She smiles wryly. “No pun intended.”

I force a laugh that would be real under any other circumstances, but this doesn’t feel funny at all. This feels a whole lot like getting dumped. “So, you want to fuck other people.”

Her cheeks flush, but it doesn’t melt me the way it usually does; instead, it just makes me angrier. Or sadder. I’m not really sure which one I’m feeling. “I’m just saying, we don’t have to do the whole ‘exclusive couple’ thing. I thought…I don’t know what I thought, really. I guess I thought that when I had sex, that would make it official. That it would be the turning point where I couldn’t hide being gay from my family and friends anymore, or something. But…I had sex. And the only person who knows that besides me is the person I had it with.”

“Did you think there was some magical sex fairy who sprinkled dust on you afterward so everyone would be able to tell?”

She huffs out a laugh. “I don’t know what I thought. Down in Meridian, I’m under such a microscope—everything I do is about how it reflects on my parents, my grandparents, my town. Thinking about what I want is always so tangled up in what everyone around me wants
for
me. I guess this just made me realize that this is about me, not anyone else.”

“And what you want is to date around?” I clarify, trying to keep my voice light despite the stinging feeling in my chest. Because she’s right—this
is
about her. She’s the one dealing with coming out. As much as I hate the idea of her being with anyone else, I also don’t want to hold her back because of what
I
want any more than I want her parents to.

“It’s what you wanted from the beginning, right? And now you’ll be free for your trip to the city.”

Her voice is a little shaky as she asks, and I don’t know if she’s afraid I’ll argue with her or what. I know that coming here against her parents’ wishes was the biggest fight of her life, and she’s had to do nothing but defend her choices since. I won’t make myself a fight too. “Right,” I say, wondering if it sounds as hollow to her as it does to me.

Judging by the way she nods, it doesn’t. “Okay then.” She leans over and pecks me on the mouth, then gets up with mug in hand and pads over to the kitchen to rinse it. The blanket falls back on the couch as she rises, and I see that underneath, she was wearing a T-shirt and boxers.

My
T-shirt and boxers.

I’d thought the lingerie she wore last night was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen, but I can’t imagine anything better—or worse—than the sight of her right now. I gaze shamelessly at her mile-long legs as she stands over the sink, and all I can think as I mentally lick them from ankle right up to the cotton hem is
mine
.

Only she isn’t.

She shuts off the sink and turns to put the cup in the drying rack, catching me staring. I think she must be able to tell that I’m eye-fucking the hell out of her, but all she says is, “Oh, right. I borrowed your clothes, too. Hope that’s okay.”

I want to rip them off you
, I think.

I want to fuck you out of them
, I think.

“It’s fine,” I say.

“I should probably change back now anyway and head home,” she says. “As long as I’m borrowing stuff, do you have an extra umbrella or baseball cap or something?”

I glance back at the patio doors. The rain has lightened up a little, I guess, but I still wouldn’t want to walk outside in it. I open my mouth to tell Sam she’s welcome to stay the night, but then I realize she knows that; she
wants
to leave. And I have to let her. “Sure, take whatever you need.”

She disappears into my bedroom to change back into her clothes, and I busy myself with digging through the coat closet to find my umbrella. It’s my only one, but I’m sure as hell not going anywhere tonight, so. I also grab her jacket, and I’m waiting with both like a human coat rack when she emerges a couple of minutes later, wearing a cute dress I realize must be concealing the fuckhot lingerie underneath. “Thanks,” she says when I hand her the jacket and umbrella. “I’ll return it ASAP.”

“It’s fine,” I say, because I guess they’re the only words in my vocabulary right now. “You can give it back on Monday morning.”

I wait for her to say something about how it’s only Saturday, how there’s so much of the weekend in between now and then and she hopes she’ll see me sooner, but it never comes. “Perfect.”

Perfect.
I think we must have very different definitions of that word.

I walk her to the door, unable to believe she’s really about to leave. To go out into the rain rather than cuddling with me on the couch, watching a movie or one of her favorite cooking shows. To spend the night in her room alone instead of with me, on me, under me.

But she does. And there’s nothing I can do but watch her walk out.

• • •

God bless Studio Art. I love painting here on any normal day, a bastion of peace broken only by the sounds of brush strokes and whatever music Suzanne plays at a low volume, surrounded by some combination of Sid, Abe, and Lili. But on a day like today when I truly need to feel alone but not lonely? It’s exceptionally perfect.

Or at least it would be if my friends weren’t so observant.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Sid asks me for the second time

I
could
say, “I’m fine,” like I’ve been saying over and over, but apparently that doesn’t help, so this time I say, “Why would I not be?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. That just seems a little…darker than your usual stuff.”

I look at my work. We’re supposed to be coming up with our own representations of the word “Hope.” Even I can recognize that the amount of black on my canvas is a little excessive. But it’s hard to feel a whole lot of hope after spending an entire weekend sitting on my ass, fielding only the super occasional text from Sam as if everything was normal and fine, then seeing her this morning just long enough for her to return my umbrella. Had I brought her tea like I’d contemplated, I probably would’ve ended up chugging it myself; she certainly didn’t stick around by the front desk long enough to notice whether I had another cup with me or not. “Just taking a different approach.”

She shrugs and turns back to her own work, which is definitely more cheerful; the swaths of saffron, emerald, and indigo are far more calming than anything I’m likely to produce today. It seems far nicer to be in Sid’s brain than mine.

“Actually…” I start to speak, then hold my tongue. I haven’t told Sid about Samara, and I have no idea if Abe has. Now would be a weird time to mention that by the way, I’ve sort of had a girlfriend for the past month, only not really, and now not at all. “Never mind.”

“What is it?” she asks, turning the full focus of her gaze on me. Behind me, I hear Abe shift, and I know he’s pretending not to listen even though he absolutely is.

“I was just wondering how you’re doing,” I say, and it’s only half a lie. “We haven’t talked much about the Jen breakup. You seem okay, but if you’re not…you can talk about it, you know.”
Please, please talk about it, because I would love to understand how you’re okay.

“Oh, you’re sweet,” she says with a smile that makes me feel more than a little guilty. “But yeah, it was definitely for the best. No regrets. Honestly, she and I were not a good fit. And I can’t believe I’m saying this, but…I actually like Karim. Kind of a lot.” She shakes her head, the sparkly clip in her hijab catching the light. “Please don’t tell my parents that. Ever. The last thing they need is any sort of confirmation that they know my love life best.”

“Secret’s safe with me,” I promise with a smile, jealousy settling deep in my gut. I’m perfectly familiar with “The best way to get over someone is to get under someone else,” and I’m glad that’s working for Sid—metaphorically speaking, I imagine, since I don’t think she’s knocking boots with the guy she met at the Muslim center’s Parents’ Weekend dinner, and to the best of my knowledge, she wasn’t with Jen either—but the thought of getting with someone else now just depresses and exhausts me.

Which of course makes me wonder why it
doesn’t
do that for Samara.

I feel a tap on my shoulder, and this time, it’s Abe. “You still pissed at me?” he asks, keeping his voice low.

I
am
kind of annoyed at him still, but there really isn’t any point; Samara coming on the trip is a non-issue at this point, and I guess I can’t blame him for being a little nosy. Under normal circumstances, I’d be sharing every detail of my love life with him and Sid. “No,” I grumble. “But spying on me wasn’t cool.”

“Agreed,” he says immediately. “I really am sorry about that, and for being a dick. I just had visions of us wingmanning each other on this trip, and it never even occurred to me you didn’t have the same visions. If you wanna bring the girl—”

“I don’t,” I bite out, realizing too late that I’m being too loud. Suzanne glances in our direction, and I mouth an apology; though she doesn’t mind us talking, the volume is definitely expected to be lower. She nods and continues walking around, appraising work and answering questions. All at once, I’m reminded of that moment Samara walked into the gallery for my show, looking gorgeous enough to break every heart in the room, and Suzanne’s “she looks pretty special to me.”