Page 37

THIRTY

lorenzo

I text Ruby from the road.

Lorenzo: I’ll be back on campus in an hour. Are you home?

Ruby: Yep. How was Lakeside?

Lorenzo: Stay there. I’m coming to you.

She doesn’t ask anything else. She doesn’t need to. I let out a breath and remind myself that soon she’ll be in my arms and I’ll find a way to feel okay.

She must have been waiting at the window, because she opens the door and steps outside while I’m still walking up the path. She’s in boxer shorts and a little tank top, and her hair spills messily down her shoulders. She stands on the top step, her forehead creased with concern.

“Lorenzo?” she says softly.

I stop on the step below her and wrap my arms around her waist, pressing my cheek to her chest. Her skin is pillow soft and smells like summer. She steadies herself on my good shoulder, and her other hand wraps around my neck, burrowing into my hair.

“It’s okay.” I squeeze my eyes closed. For now, it really is.

She places a kiss on my forehead at the same time her fingers dip below my shirt to grip my back. That simple touch sends heat streaking through me, bulldozing over all the noise in my head. I need more of it.

My hands ring her waist and I kiss her. I squeeze her warm skin as my cock fills, instantly ready. My tongue pushes past her lips, and I feel her surprise and the way she pulls back at my intensity. This isn’t what she thought I came here for.

She stops me with a hand on my chest and looks into my eyes. “What happened? Tell me what you need.”

I am. I can’t take the worried look in her eyes, so I let my gaze drop to her lips, which are wet from my tongue.

Fire surges inside me, a welcome, all-consuming feeling.

I take her head in my hands and kiss her again.

Her fingers hook around my wrists, and I think she’s going to push me away, but her nails press into my skin and she gives in to me.

Her body softens, and she angles her head to take my tongue deeper.

If I could do this all night and not talk, not think, I would be okay. The taste of her could heal anything.

I pull her inside, and as soon as the door shuts, I pin her against it. She sighs into my mouth when I press my cock against her body. The sound nearly makes me lose control.

“Fuck,” I grunt against her lips.

“What?” she asks between kissing the corner of my mouth and my jaw.

“I can’t do what I want to you.”

She pulls back an inch, heat in her eyes. “What do you want to do?”

“Everything.”

“Pick one.”

I swallow as the fire in me roars. From the distant recesses of my brain, a voice tells me this is not the night to sleep with Ruby.

That even though every part of me is screaming to be inside her, I’ll be sorry as soon as it’s over that I didn’t do what I knew was right.

But being inside her—yeah. That’s what I need. “Get down on your knees.”

Something playful flashes in her eyes like she’s considering telling me no just to see what it does to me, but I’m not playing.

For a moment she stays in place and traces her finger over the tattoo above my abs, the sinking ship under a crescent moon that I’ve regretted since I got it.

But then she slides her back down the door to the floor, and when I push her bare shoulders to make her go faster, she does exactly as instructed.

From the slow, careful way she unbuttons my jeans, I’m sure Ruby knows how to drive guys wild, and I’m sure it’s fucking incredible, but I don’t want the lead-up tonight. I can’t wait and I don’t want to fucking think. I take over, unzipping my jeans and pushing them and my boxers down.

Okay, I was wrong. I can wait, just for a second.

Because the way Ruby stares at my cock like she’s completely lost herself will live in my brain for the rest of my life.

She’s never seen me naked, I realize belatedly, and I couldn’t have asked for a better reception.

Her eyelids have gone half-mast, her lips parted.

The only part of her that moves is her chest rising and falling.

Her nipples are hard under the pink fabric of her top.

Then she lifts her chin, and her gaze climbs up my body until it reaches my eyes.

I say her name and she swallows. Now I can’t wait anymore.

I press my hips forward so the head of my cock grazes her lips.

She tongues it exactly like I want her to.

Then she wets her lips and, taking me in her hand, glides it back and forth over the slickness of her lips. Sexy as fuck. And not nearly enough.

I exhale a grunt. “Good. Give me more.”

I press my arm to the door and lay my head against it, watching while she lets my cock slip past her lips.

My other hand finds her hair. I tell my fingers to take it easy, be a fucking gentleman.

Let her take it at her pace and don’t push, but they refuse to listen.

I moan when my cock hits the back of her throat, and my fingers twist tightly in her hair.

She lets me out slowly, and that’s the instant I lose control.

I drop both my hands to her jaw, cradling her head, and I thrust into her mouth.

She tenses, her nostrils flaring, and immediately I pull out.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, even though her head is still in my hands. “Too much?”

She shakes her head, recovering quickly. “No, Lorenzo, keep going. I want it. Give me all of it.”

The words are barely off her lips before I’m pushing into her again.

I try to go easy and slow, but that’s not possible anymore.

I thrust and slide out, then do it again, harsh, barely controlled thrusts.

But I can’t stand not being buried in the wet heat of her, so I push myself deep.

I tilt her head back, opening her throat.

“Yeah,” I mutter. “Fuck yes. Look at you taking me.”

She covers my hands with her own and squeezes, urging me on.

She’s making a sound I feel as much as hear, a luscious, pulsating, animalistic sound of her working my cock with everything she has.

I fuck her mouth, watching her. I want to close my eyes and let go, but I make myself watch her face with the shred of control I still have.

I will not fuck this up; I will not cross her boundaries.

I just need her as close to me as possible. I need her to feel me.

“Ruby,” I rasp, right on the edge. “Let me come in your throat. As deep as you can take me.”

She lets out a moan that’s pure sex as her throat closes around the head of my cock.

Her nails sink into me, giving me permission to use her body however I want.

I suck a breath through my teeth and thrust hard and deep.

Hot pleasure rips through me, and I come in her mouth with a jerk.

Dropping my head back, I groan, letting her finish me the way she wants.

I close my eyes to everything but her. My hips convulse uncontrollably while she tightens her mouth around me, taking all of it.

“Jesus,” I say a few times when it’s over. I can barely see. I steady one hand on her shoulder and sink to the floor next to her, then tip my head back and breathe.

Ruby kisses my shoulder and nuzzles against me. “No, my name’s Ruby.”

I smile behind closed eyes. “Right now I think you’re the second coming of?—”

“Hush.” She chuckles. “Gina wouldn’t approve.”

“I promise to keep Jesus out of this if you keep Gina out of it.”

She strokes a finger along my jaw. “Deal.”

Life is perfect for a few minutes as we sit there in silence. The air-conditioning vent is blowing against my bad shoulder, and Ruby’s warm body is pressed against the other, her hair spilling down my chest.

“Lorenzo?”

Her voice wakes me out of near sleep. “Yeah?”

“Tell me what you need now.”

I’m surprised by how quickly despair surfaces again. I take her hand and hold it between mine.

“Did something happen?”

“I saw Ant.”

She hesitates. “Did he not look good?”

“He looked the same. But we got into it.”

Her silence urges me on.

“He admitted it; he blames me for what happened.”

“Nothing about that is shocking, Lorenzo.”

“Then why did it knock me on my ass?” I look at her.

“Because it’s still not what you wanted to hear?”

“I asked for it. And he’s not wrong.”

“Just because you both agree that it’s your fault doesn’t mean you’re both right.”

I lay her hand flat on my chest and cover it with mine.

“How did you leave it?”

“Shitty.” I smile bitterly. “He told me to stop worrying about it.”

“Sounds like Anthony.”

“There’s nothing I can do to make it up. I thought if he said it straight to my face, it would help, but now I just feel like a garbage human. Everything he said is right. I do have the life. Look at me.”

“Know what? I think you’re already doing what you can do for him.”

“What’s that, nothing?”

“You’re taking the blame so he doesn’t have to.”

I think on this. “That’s helping?”

“As someone well versed in self-loathing, I say yeah. That’s where he is right now. I don’t think he can accept all the blame for his choices without self-destructing. Not yet.”

“What if you’re giving me more credit than I deserve?”

“Why not try believing it for a while? It can’t hurt. You don’t have to figure everything out right now—his life, your life, mine. That’s a lot for one man to take responsibility for.”

“I’m not trying to take responsibility for yours.”

She smiles. “Yes, you are. In your way, you are. Let Anthony worry about his problems and me worry about mine and you worry about yours. And when your worries get too big, lay them on me for a while.”

“I hate when people do that. Expect other people to carry your burden?”

“I do it all the time.”

“You don’t expect me to?—”

“But you do it anyway. So let me do it for you. Lay it on me.”

I lean heavily against her. “There. It’s on you.”

She laughs. “You’re heavier than I expected.”

I slide down until my head is in her lap and close my eyes. The idea of really leaning on Ruby with all my worries when she has so much of her own life to figure out? It feels selfish. But with her warm body under me and her arms wrapped around me, it doesn’t feel impossible.