Messing around with Tenley would make things difficult. Even that knowledge wasn’t enough motivation for me to stop. She was so soft and warm, and she tasted so fucking good. I groaned when the hand that wasn’t currently wrapped around my neck moved down my back and under my shirt. The skin-to-skin contact was what I’d been waiting for. I wanted her naked, laid out on the closest surface available. Not the best move, considering we had at least two months of sessions ahead of us.
I grabbed her ass, squeezing hard as I deposited her on the counter and stepped between her legs. She abandoned my hair, both of her hands moving up my sides to my chest. Her touch timid, she toyed with the barbells piercing my nipples. Lust overrode logic when Tenley wrapped her legs around my waist, pulling me in tight. Then she started rocking her hips, giving friction to the erection looking to bust its way through the zipper of my jeans. I palmed her ass with one hand, only too happy to grind up on her while I found the hem of her shirt with the other. Fabric bunched at my wrist until I could feel satin and lace. I’d already taken things too far. If she lost any clothing, I doubted I had the control required to prevent the inevitable from happening. Still, a peek wouldn’t hurt. I broke the kiss and looked down.
Her bra matched her panties; gray, with pink pinstripes and trimmed with pale pink lace. It was sexy and feminine and I wanted it gone. I slipped a finger under the lace edge.
“Careful,” she panted, covering my hand with hers. “They’re still healing.”
It took me a second to catch her meaning. Some of the new steel Lisa had been so kindly adorning her with resided beneath the satin padding of the bra I wanted to rip off.
“Fuck,” I groaned. “You’re killing me here.” I dipped lower and grazed the barbell, causing her nipple to tighten in response. All the things I wanted to do I couldn’t. It would be far too sensitive still. I withdrew my hand and Tenley let out a quiet moan of discontent, the sound heading south.
“Anywhere else?” I punctuated the question with a slow grind of my hips.
One of her hands snaked between us, and she palmed my erection. “Not yet.”
I thought my head was going to explode. The lines were blurred. The further I allowed this to go, the harder it was going to be to backpedal out of my idiocy.
I kissed her to distract us both, slowing the urgency in an attempt to subdue the raging desire between us. I pried her hand gently away from my belt buckle, lacing my fingers through hers. She let out a frustrated sound and tried to wriggle free.
“Easy, Tenley.”
So much for patience and restraint. I thought knowing she was damaged somehow would have been enough to keep me from doing something this stupid. Apparently I was wrong. But no matter how badly I wanted to get inside her, my conscience finally caught up to my hormones.
Too bad it hadn’t kicked in about ten minutes earlier, before I’d put my mouth and hands on her. I kissed her one more time before I backed off. Tenley wasn’t interested in slowing things down, though. She leaned in when I leaned back, grabbing for my belt buckle again.
“We need to dial it down,” I said, trying for calm with a throat full of gravel.
“You want this,” she argued, her fingers dipping into the waistband, grazing the head of my cock through the thin barrier of my boxers.
“Ah, shit.” I groaned. Against my better judgment, I put my hand over hers and removed it once again. “I’m not disputing that.”
“Then why are you dialing it down?” she mocked, but she stopped fighting against my hold.
I didn’t let go of her hand this time, because I didn’t trust her complicity. “It’s complicated.”
Her legs went limp and she pushed on my chest, shoving me away. “You’re with someone.”
It was an accusation. She believed it to be true; I could see it in that hot, angry glare of hers.
“Do I look like the kind of guy who has a girlfriend?” Antagonism cut through, making it sound harsher than I intended. She shrank away from me and pulled her knees up to her chest like a barricade. I couldn’t blame her. She’d let me into her apartment and I’d gotten all up on her and then rejected her. I was such a dick.
“Fuck,” I muttered, frustrated I’d broken the only rule I ever tried to follow. Especially with someone I actually liked and wanted to know. And now I hurt her feelings in the process.
She shook her head, a rueful smile turning up the corner of her mouth. “No. Of course not. That would mean you’d have to let someone really see you.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I snapped, unaccustomed to being called out.
“Nothing. Forget I said anything. You should go. I have essays to mark and a class to teach in the morning.”
She slid off the counter and adjusted her shirt. I was right in her face when she looked up. Her eyes were watery, swimming with pain so deep I immediately felt remorse for getting upset. I’d been the one to start and end this when I shouldn’t have done either. There was a very real possibility that she would have let me fuck her on the counter. I didn’t know how I felt about that. Under different circumstances I wouldn’t have thought twice. With Tenley it was a problem. And not because of some stupid rule. She didn’t fit into the same category as the women I had been with in the past. I didn’t want her to, either.