Hearts in Extra Time (An Atlanta Skyline Novella) Page 3

  “Oh, no, he’s not dead. I lost him to my former best friend, Rita. That conniving bitch seduced him right out from under me. Technically I was having an affair, too, but it wasn’t anything serious. Herb never should’ve known, but Rita had to get on her high horse and—”

  “Great to meet you, but we need to get going.” Aaron grabbed Stella’s hand and tugged her toward the door.

  “Best of luck, you two. I hope you make it longer than me and Herbie,” the old lady called as they hurried out to the parking lot.

  “Oh my God, that was crazy,” Stella exclaimed, gratefully filling her lungs with cool air. Aaron kept his fingers wrapped around hers, swinging her arm gently as they fell into step on the sidewalk.

  “Which part?”

  She gaped at him. “Which part wasn’t?”

  “Kissing you seemed reasonable to me.”

  “That’s not the word I would choose,” she replied shortly, grateful the darkness concealed the flush she felt creeping up her neck.

  “How would you describe it?”

  She pulled her lower lip between her teeth, fighting the instinct to be flippant and self-effacing. Her approach to flirting had always involved wry deflection and a well-timed eye-roll, but where had that gotten her? Tonight she was someone different, so she’d try something different.

  “Amazing,” she answered honestly.

  Aaron’s teeth were Cheshire cat-white in the gloom. “I would’ve said mind-blowing, but I can get behind amazing.”

  He squeezed her hand and swung it a little higher. Her step lightened as they walked in comfortable silence, her smile lingering on her lips as she replayed the scene in the liquor store.

  They passed the gas station again, and her attention snagged on the picture of a white-sand beach in a beer ad. She turned to Aaron slowly, studying his profile as they passed beneath a streetlight.

  “That engagement story you told—did it really happen? Because it was awfully detailed.”

  “It probably did, but not to me. There is a restaurant with a special proposal table in the Keys. I went with my friends, on our vacation. We didn’t know about the table beforehand, and no one got engaged while we were there. Nor are any of us likely to be back with a lady in tow any time soon.”

  She winced automatically, then shoved the impulse aside. She’d spent so many first dates weighing marriage potential, piling on the pressure, trying to read the future in each gesture, each move, each casual comment.

  Not every guy had to have long-term potential. This was a one-night thing, and that’s all either of them wanted.

  “How did whatshisname propose? Your ex?”

  She pursed her lips at the memory. “It was very practical and thought out, just like him. I came home from a long day at work to find the dining-room table laid all nicely, candles, tablecloth, the whole shebang. He’d gotten carry-out from a good Greek place down the road, so we had eggplant moussaka and red wine. Then he started talking about how long we’d known each other—”

  “How long was that?”

  “Three years. We met in law school. Anyway, he talked about how long we’d been together, how happy he was, our future, blah blah. Then he pulled out a plastic kid’s ring with a picture of a rainbow on it and explained that it was only symbolic, because he wanted me to be able to pick out the real one myself. He asked. I said yes. The rest is history.”

  “He was doing okay until the plastic ring.”

  “I know. I didn’t think it was so bad at the time. I can be particular, I guess, so it made sense that I’d want to pick my own jewelry. But it sucked going to work the next day, newly engaged, with no diamond to show everyone. And it sucked that he didn’t even try to pick something out for me—to do a little research, maybe look at the jewelry I already had and take it from there.”

  She shrugged, trying to shake off the unhappy weight that settled on her shoulders whenever she thought of Carl. The hotel was visible up ahead, its brightly lit entrance promising a night of untold pleasures. She had to look forward, enjoy the evening, and not let her old hang-ups and bang-ups spoil it.

  Yet she did exactly the opposite, and found herself turning to Aaron to ask, “Have you ever been engaged?”

  “No, never,” he said forcefully. He added, “Relationships aren’t my thing. I’m sure they can work for other people, but not me.”

  “Why not?” she asked, then immediately regretted the question. It didn’t matter. After they got off the plane in Atlanta tomorrow they’d never see each other again.

  He shrugged as they stepped through the hotel’s automatic doors. “I’ve seen too many relationships go wrong, too many people come out the other end sad and hurt with nothing to show for all that investment into someone else. I’m happy enough on my own, so I don’t see any point in risking a good situation.”

  “What if the other person made you happier than you are now?”

  “What if she didn’t?” he countered.

  “Most people accept the risk of being unhappy because they’re confident that a few short-term losses will lead to the forever win. And the attempts that don’t work out, well—usually they make you a better person somehow.”

  “Are you a better person for having been with your ex?”

  The question was pointed but not rude. He watched her, patient and attentive, as they crossed the lobby to the elevator.

  She thought about it. Saw the confident, unself-conscious, goal-oriented woman she’d been the night she was introduced to Carl by a mutual friend at a housewarming party.

  Then she remembered the Saturday she spent calling down the guest list, summoning her courage to tell people in person that the wedding was cancelled rather than hide behind a bulk e-mail. The lonely, headache-sobbing nights she second-guessed every choice she’d made over the last three years. Her now constant backdrop of suspicion mixed with embarrassment, absurdly wondering whether ill-intentioned men could see through to her damaged heart and try to take advantage.

  “No,” she told him flatly. “I’m not.”

  He had the good grace not to acknowledge that she’d proved his point.

  “I’m not sure I believe in the forever win,” he said instead. “There’s no such thing in soccer. You can be league champion at the end of one season, then the team changes, the manager changes, something changes, and you lose every game in the next. People change, too, so the idea that there’s one person who will be perfect for you forever…” He shook his head. “I can’t see it.”

  She wanted to argue, to make the case for soul mates and true love and the institution of marriage—but if she was brutally honest with herself, her conviction in that stuff was a little shaky, too.

  “What do you believe in?” she asked. The elevator arrived and she punched the button for their floor.

  “Win the match you’re playing,” he said firmly. “Don’t think about the one before, or the next one, or the one in a week’s time. Just do everything you can to win in the here and now, because it’ll be over before you know it.”

  “I’ve never been good at right now,” she admitted. Her life had always been about the next test, the next school, the next job. Now it was the next client, the next project, the next deadline. Even on the cruise she always had a plan, which restaurant to try tomorrow, what activity to do the next morning. She told herself she didn’t want to miss anything, but suddenly she wondered whether instead she was missing everything.

  Not tonight.

  She stepped out of the elevator with fresh resolve. Forget Carl, forget her unworn wedding dress, forget the irrelevant seating charts taking up space in the corner of her dining room. Forget her work, forget the storm, forget all of the uncertainties and anxieties that would rise with the sun in the morning. Tonight she would hump her sexy, soccer-playing commitment-phobe until he begged for mercy. She would be the uncomplicated, irresponsible, liberated sexual goddess she knew she could be.

  She would be here and nowhere else. Right now
.

  Four

  “Oh my God, did that hurt?” Stella winced.

  “Like hell. It’s not just the cleats—soccer’s a fast game. The impact when two players collide at speed is like getting hit by a car going twenty miles an hour.”

  He closed the video clip of the tackle and put his phone on the bedside table. Stella lounged on her side next to him, propping a glass of wine on her hip. He looked beyond her to the bottle and six-pack carton on the table. For all the fuss of walking to the liquor store, neither of them had drunk much.

  Nothing about the evening had gone quite as he’d expected. He’d had fun—he’d had a lot of fun with her, actually—but despite their heavy flirtation, neither of them seemed willing to make the first move.

  Scratch that—he was willing, just uncertain. He vacillated between such extreme comfort with Stella that he almost reached for her automatically, then jerked back to the awareness of how little they knew each other, how much he wanted to know her, and how earnestly he needed to get this right.

  Casual flings were his expertise. He regularly enjoyed the full gamut, from anonymous, hasty fumbling in nightclub broom closets to long-term friends-with-benefits scenarios involving the ultimate intimacy of exchanging house keys. He expected this night with Stella to sit perfectly in the middle: an unhurried exploration of a woman whose brain he was already quite fond of, and whose body he was eager to map in great detail.

  For hours, he’d watched her carefully, noting every not-exactly-inadvertent brush of hand or thigh, every coquettish remark or coy smile, every lingering glance when she thought he wasn’t looking. He was fluent in the subtle signs of feminine attraction and Stella’s interest practically scrolled across her forehead in neon letters.

  So what was his problem? Why was he showing her clips of his season highlights on his phone instead of burying himself between her thighs?

  He hated to admit it, but he had to face facts before they ended up sleeping with their backs turned to each other, this rare opportunity vanishing into the thick wedge of air between them.

  He was nervous.

  He wasn’t a nervous person by nature. In fact, he was the opposite—a professional athlete who thrived on adrenaline and competition, and spent his free time in pursuit of as much joy as he could pack into each minute. He tried to approach women with respect and humility, happy when things went his way, calmly moving on when they didn’t.

  This time was different, though he couldn’t put his finger on exactly why. It could be the length of their time together, this clear-eyed, conscious walk toward a one-night stand. Or the instant, gut-punch attraction that had emptied his lungs the moment he saw her. Or that kiss in the liquor store, the electricity that made his lips tingle the whole walk back, the sense that the earth had shifted beneath his feet and might never quite recover its previous axis.

  Whatever it was, it was putting him off his game. And if he didn’t jump in and start playing, the whistle would blow before he got his first touch.

  “Anyway.” Stella pushed up on her elbow and turned her back to him as she stretched to place her glass on the bedside table.

  Instead of rolling back over, she hesitated, facing the curtained window. He sensed the distance growing between them, knew she was about to retreat into that busy mind and leave him cold and vibrating on the far edge of the bed.

  “Anyway,” he echoed, filling the empty space she’d left in the word with sizzling intention.

  He gripped her hip and tipped her onto her back, then eased on top of her, pressing his leg between her knees. She squeaked in surprise, eyes wide, but her hands rose to his shoulders and urged him down.

  “Green light?” he asked softly, their noses nearly touching.

  “Floor it,” she commanded, and he pressed his mouth against her sweet, smiling lips.

  He loved the way she kissed. Unselfconscious, enthusiastic, bordering on greedy. He’d had some epic make-out sessions in his life, but he never expected them to be one-upped by a first kiss in a liquor store, in front of an involuntary audience. Now they had the whole night in front of them, and he intended to drink his fill.

  He slid one hand between the pillow and the back of her neck, lacing his fingers through her springing curls. He gave her all she asked for and more, meeting her tongue with his own, catching her lower lip with the barest pressure of teeth.

  He teased a line down her side, followed the curve of her rib to her breast. She hummed approval and he gave himself permission to finally cup that soft, generous flesh he’d been eyeing since the moment he spotted the empty chair at her table.

  His cock twitched as his palm closed over the warm curve, the hard point of her nipple palpable even through the thick material of her bra.

  “Aaron?”

  He pushed up on his elbows. “Everything okay?”

  She half-nodded, then turned it into a shake of her head.

  “Can I ask you for something?”

  “Anything.”

  “Don’t be sweet, okay? Don’t be nice. Be selfish. Be an asshole. Fuck me like we’re in a sleazy club and you don’t even know my name.”

  He studied the woman beneath him, her eyes wide and unblinking, her lips pursed as she waited for his response. The smart, successful, rejected bride.

  Months ago she’d been on her way to the altar. Now her fantasy was a rough, nasty, anonymous bang.

  Marriage, relationships, commitment. What a scam.

  “If you change your mind, or I go too far, you tell me.”

  She nodded.

  “Promise,” he urged.

  “I promise,” she said sweetly, that sweetness he wanted to savor, cherish, give the gentle, meticulous attention it deserved.

  But the lady had a request, and he didn’t intend to disappoint.

  With a lingering, regretful look at her body he reached over and switched off the light. Then he hauled her up from the bed and shoved her against the wall.

  She moaned, a ragged, needy sound, and her fingertips dug into his shoulders. He closed his eyes, mentally dragging the two of them out of the tidy hotel room and into a storage cupboard in a grimy nightclub.

  Kegs crowding the floor. A head-high maze of shelves packed with bottles and glassware. Muffled music on the other side of the door, the sickly tang of lemon-scented bleach, the taste of wine on her tongue bumping against his.

  She fumbled with his belt, metal clinking in her trembling hands. Feverish desire prickled over his skin. He pinned her hips to the wall, pressing his aching cock mercilessly against her abdomen as she raced to open the buckle.

  Instead of helping her, he pawed her breasts, yanking up the hem of her shirt, cupping and pinching and toying with her hard nipples, tugging them to peek over the edge of her bra.

  Finally she freed him from his jeans, pixie fingers fluttering against flesh as hard as granite. He ducked his head and kissed her, soft lips mirroring her soft hand, then remembered he wasn’t supposed to be this guy. Tenderness and affection had failed Stella. She wanted to be taken. Enjoyed.

  Forgotten.

  Cold, sharp-edged sadness lodged in his throat like he’d choked on an ice cube. He swallowed hard and sank his teeth into Stella’s lower lip.

  She tightened her grip on his cock and he shuddered, every muscle in his body tensing in service of the restraint his erection required. He reached between them and pushed her jeans and panties halfway down her thighs, then shoved his hand between her legs.

  Wet, slick heat, and he growled his approval as he used his body to press her against the wall. He probed her bluntly, hair tickling his palm, plunging his finger into her tight core, slicking his lubricated thumb over her taut clit.

  She ground against his hand, slid her palms beneath his t-shirt and ran them up and down his chest. He put a lot of effort into his body and he drank in her attention, fighting to ignore his cock’s twitching, agonizing need until her exploration became too tantalizing to endure.

  He grabbed
her wrist, guided her hand to his cock and pressed his lips just beside her ear.

  “Ask me to fuck you.”

  She swallowed. “Fuck me.”

  He thrust against her, giving her one last preview before stepping back.

  “Side zip on my bag. Make it quick.”

  He slouched against the wall as she hobbled toward his duffel bag, jeans and panties bunched around her ankles. She shucked them off and squatted over the bag.

  He stroked himself idly, admiring the firm contours of her ass, the pink, parted flesh between her thighs. He wished he could’ve tasted it—wished he could’ve tasted all of her, savored every inch of her perfect peach skin.

  But she wanted him to be someone else, and he shrugged on that selfish indifference as she approached with a condom in her hand.

  He looked pointedly at his dick. “What are you waiting for, a handwritten invitation?”

  She ripped open the packet and rolled the latex over his erection. His willpower lurched toward the edge of the cliff as her fingers ringed his base, even the fleetest brush of her fingers making him feel like his skin had thinned to expose his nerve endings.

  He pushed her back against the wall and pressed himself between her legs. Then he clamped his hands on the backs of her thighs and swept her up to straddle him.

  “This what you want?” he asked gruffly, trying to sound like an asshole. A real asshole probably wouldn’t ask, but that was a line he wasn’t about to cross.

  She nodded, and he gave her a little jerk.

  “Say it,” he insisted.

  “I want you. Exactly like this.”

  Disappointment flared in his stomach but he brushed it aside, gripped his throbbing cock and eased it inside her slick, yielding core.

  The strangled, plaintive sound that wrenched from her throat nearly finished him. For several long seconds he stayed still, breathing deeply, trying to think about anything other than the snug flesh encasing him. Then Stella moved her hips, two subtle rocks, and he completely lost control.