And finally, I grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him to me, and his kiss shook all the apprehension out of my body. The bullshit still existed, but for tonight, it was banished. He needed me, I needed him, and nothing else mattered.
Without a word—hell, without breaking the kiss more than we had to—we started pulling off clothes. Step by step, we inched toward his bed. Piece by piece, we stripped away the layers between us.
Wrapped up in each other and not a single stitch of clothing, we sank into bed together. My God. This I could handle. Just two naked bodies, two turned-on men, and some lube and condoms within reach.
We wound up one our sides, kissing and stroking each other. Apparently I could still get it up.
Why wouldn’t I? I was with Rick. In bed. Naked. Turned on. Of course I could—
Right. That.
I forced those thoughts out of my head and fucked harder into Rick’s hand. “I want to fuck you.”
“Please do,” he breathed. “Please…”
The soft plea gave me goose bumps.
“Get on—” I hesitated. “On your back.”
Rick eyed me, but then he did what he was told, and I was genuinely surprised he’d obeyed. It was like I couldn’t even hear the authority in my own voice anymore. I wasn’t a Dom tonight. I was a submissive taking orders from an invisible Dom and carrying them out on another submissive.
But this wasn’t about being a Dom or a sub. Not tonight. After all, I didn’t have to be a Dom all the time—I’d had a spectacular sex life with Karen, and she wasn’t into kink at all—so I should’ve been able to function now, but I couldn’t. Having the Dom rug yanked out from under my feet had thrown me completely off on every level. Every touch meant something. Or it should’ve been something that it wasn’t.
I told myself I didn’t care who was on top, but every option had subtext and meanings and implications that threatened to kill the mood. I could be on top, but then who was I kidding?
Especially since, no matter which way we spun it, I wasn’t in control in here. Neither was Rick. Mitchell was in control. The fucking firm was in control.
Rick broke the kiss, and the instant he met my eyes, I knew it was over. I couldn’t read his gaze to save my life, couldn’t tell if I was seeing pity or annoyance or straight-up confusion, but it wasn’t a look I wanted to see in a lover’s eyes when I was already second-guessing my every move. When I was questioning my own motivation for being this close to him.
I lifted myself off him. Blowing out a breath, I shook my head and sat up. “I can’t… I can’t do this.”
He pushed himself up onto his elbow. “What?”
“I’m sorry.” I rubbed both hands over my face and then dropped them into my lap. “I can’t.”
He touched my arm, and it took all I had not to recoil from him. “Is this about—”
“You know what it’s about.”
Our eyes met. He grimaced and lowered his gaze.
“I’m so sorry.” I raked my fingers through my hair. “I just…can’t shake…”
“I know. You’ve been a million miles away all night.”
I winced. “I’m sorry.” Why did every apology sound even more useless than the last? “I have no idea what to do about this.”
“Neither do I.” He moved his hand to the side of my neck, and when our eyes met, he said, “We don’t have to do this if you’re not in the mood.”
The shitty thing was, I wanted to be in the mood. Desperately. There was nothing in the world I wanted more in that moment than to tie Rick six ways to Sunday, fuck him into the ground and make him come so hard he cried. But I may as well have left my libido in the conference room with my bosses while they’d laid down that ultimatum, and no matter how much I wanted to, I couldn’t make myself want this.
And I couldn’t fake it, and even if I could, there was no way in hell I would with him. I refused to give him any less than the real thing.
He pushed himself up and kissed me. “Let’s go get something to eat, maybe have a glass of wine and just watch TV for a while. Sleep on it tonight. We can talk more in the morning.”
I nodded, drawing him in for another kiss. “I could go for another Golden Girls marathon tonight.”
That brought a smile to his lips, if not his eyes. “Yeah. Me too.” He took my hand. “Let’s go downstairs. I’ll order some pizza, and while we wait, we can find a bottle of wine to go with it.”
I smiled as much as I could. “Sounds great.”
It did sound great. So why did I still feel like shit?
*