My underwear is absolutely soaked when I strip them off in my closet. I don’t know how I could get so turned on walking to a car next to him, but it happened. And then the car ride back, where he wrapped his arm around me and pulled me into his side, where I dragged my fingertips down his thigh and raked my nails back up. If Stella hadn’t been in the back seat with us, there’s no doubt in my mind I’d have given him a hand job right there, even with Daniel in the front seat.
Slipping the jersey back on, I loosen the laces that run from the neck down the shirt so that it gapes open between my breasts. I want him to think of me like this every time he slips his own jersey over his head.
After I quickly brush my teeth and wash my face in the bathroom, I hear the glass door at the other end of my room opening as I’m drying my face. I step out of the bathroom, my hair still up in a ponytail and my face still damp, as Sasha walks through the door from the solarium in nothing but a thin pair of jersey shorts. I pause in the doorway, noting that the steel pipe that was threatening to break out of his pants earlier is gone. It’s a disappointment until I realize that I can easily make it reappear.
As I lean against the doorframe, I cross my arms over my chest and can feel my boobs squeezing together, hopefully giving him a nice view of my cleavage. He stalks across the room toward me, his eyes never leaving mine, but he stops about a foot in front of me. My body, expecting his touch, reacts by stepping forward toward him. I stop about an inch away, and he lets out a sound that’s half sigh, half groan.
He takes my hand in his. “Come here,” he says as he turns and starts walking back toward the solarium. Once inside, he walks across the space to the low brick wall with the glass rising from it. He steps behind me and plants his hands on my shoulders, those thick fingers of his expertly running along the ridges of tight muscles there. Holding Stella for half an hour while we waited for him was a lot more painful than I let on. It would have been fine if she were awake, but as dead weight, it was a killer. Still, I’m not upset we waited.
I let my head drop back to rest along his collarbone as he massages my shoulders, then I tell him that my lower back is killing me too. He gently slides his hands under the jersey and uses his thumbs to work out some knots there also. The force of his hands on my back moves my upper body forward, and I plant my hands on the glass to hold myself upright. Behind me, he steps closer and fits the length of himself between my ass cheeks.
“You’re not wearing anything under this,” he growls.
Instinctively, I push my hips back to slide along him. A low sound rattles around his throat, but he doesn’t stop massaging my back even as he pushes his hips forward to increase the pressure between us.
I watch the spectacular view of the city as his hands work their magic on my lower back for another minute until his hands move to my stomach and then up the front of my body to my breasts. He cups them in his hands, rolling my nipples between his thumb and forefinger and in response, I push my ass back against him even harder.
He dips his head so his mouth is next to my ear and in a low voice tells me, “I am absolutely obsessed with your body.”
“Good.” I turn my head enough for our lips to meet, and kiss him gently, our lips toying with each other for a minute until he deepens the kiss and lets one of his hands trail down the front of me until it meets my center. He drags two fingers from my clit, through my slick folds, back to my ass, then switches direction again. My hips move to meet his fingers, wanting them inside me to fill the aching emptiness that’s suddenly desperate for him. But he tortures me by dragging his fingers back and forth along my seam until I’m saying his name, begging him, “Sasha, please.”
“Still begging,” he teases.
The sigh that escapes my lips when he enters me with his fingers is otherworldly, and I can’t be responsible for the sounds that escape my lips as he begins stroking me deeply inside while his palm slides along my clit with each thrust of his hand. Between the feel of his enormous cock along my ass, the miracle his fingers are working inside me, and the way he’s gently pinching my nipple with his other hand, he’s got me ready to orgasm in record time.
“I’m so close,” I whisper, then want to cry when his hand leaves my breast. But he uses it to push his shorts down his legs, then he’s back with his bare skin against my ass.
Then he’s moving again, and I’m having trouble deciding which I appreciate more: the way his long fingers can reach the parts of me that need his touch, or the way his rock-hard muscles are cradling my body from head to toe, making me feel protected and cherished. I consider myself pretty well versed in sex, and this still feels different somehow. More intimate, more meaningful. Less about getting off and more about the connection. I mean, this is the first time in years that I’ve spent more than one night with a man.
I’m wondering if the same is true for him, or if he’s had successful short- or long-term relationships, when the pulsing deep in my core begins. It spreads, making my legs shake beneath me and my arms feel tingly. My breath comes in short inhaled gasps and long exhaled moans, and I don’t even know what I’m saying, but words are tumbling out of my mouth.
When my muscles stop pulsing around his fingers, he pulls out and I hear the rip of a condom wrapper, but I’m too exhausted to even move. “When I saw you at the game tonight in my jersey, all I could picture was bending you over,” he says, one hand coming to my hip and the other guiding my back down so my hands are resting on the cast iron table next to us. The jersey moves up my back as his lips trail kisses along my spine. “Even mid-game I wanted to be inside you,” he says, his mouth next to my ear as his body cups mine. Between my legs, he rubs the hard, long length of himself along my slick folds.
My hands rest on the table, still warm from the sun even though the air is turning cold this late at night. A shiver of anticipation runs through my body. “I live to make dreams come true,” I say as I push my hips back into him.
His responding growl sends another shiver through my body, as the realization that I can have this effect on him floods me. He pulls back and then he’s stretching me open as he slips into me. I’m still sensitive from my orgasm and the feel of him sliding along the nerve endings inside me, dragging that magnificent cock along the slick walls of my core, has me keyed up way too fast.
Then he wraps his hand around my ponytail and he must stand because his chest is no longer pressed against my back. A tiny tug has my neck arching backward.
“Look at me.”
I glance over my shoulder and am surprised at the possessiveness I see in his eyes as they scan my face and then travel down my body before returning to meet my eyes.
“You have no fucking idea what you do to me, Petra. Watching myself enter you like this—You . . . this . . . is even better than I always imagined.”
I’m sure my eyes go wide at the word “always.” He pictured us together like this? Is that what he meant last night when he said not seeing me like a little sister was half the problem?
“Everything about you,” he says as he drags himself slowly in and out of me, stoking a fire right between my legs, “is exquisite. Everything. Your smart mouth, your drive and ambition, the fierce way you care about people, your protectiveness. And this body . . .”
He picks up the pace, his thrusts coming faster and harder and leaving me breathless in the best possible way. “Talk to me,” he says. “What are you feeling?”
I’m too focused on his words, the feeling of his fingertips as they press into my hip, the way he’s hitting that spot deep inside me exactly as I need him to hit it, the way his hand is still wrapped around my hair holding my head in place. It takes me a moment to find the right words. “I feel . . . overwhelmed . . . possessed. I feel like I want to do this as often as possible. Like this is what was always meant to be between us.”
The last sentence has him grunting in agreement as he pounds into me, his movements forceful and gentle at the same time. Then he stops suddenly, pulling out right as I was starting to feel the first traces of my next orgasm.
“I want to see you,” he says as he flips me over, lifting me up and laying me back on the table. “And I want you to see me too.” He pushes back inside me, then reaches his hands inside the open neck of the jersey and cups my breasts before bringing them up so that the neckline of the shirt holds them in place like a push-up bra.
“You like that I’m wearing your number?”
“I normally avoid jersey chasers like the plague,” he says. “But you in my jersey . . . it’s the biggest fucking turn-on.”
He hooks his hands under my knees, bringing them up to the sides of his chest. At this angle, he’s so deep, and I’m stretched so wide from the thickness of him. His eyes are still on my breasts, so I bring my own hands up and cup them, rubbing my thumbs over my nipples. I see the heat in his eyes, those molten gray irises swimming with lust, his pupils so large they almost take over the irises. “You like it when I touch myself?”
“Hell yes,” he grunts, his dark hair falling forward into his eyes as he looks down at me.
I bring one finger up to my mouth, swirl the tip of it with my tongue in the most suggestive way I can manage, then bring that finger down to where our bodies join together. I’m well on my way to another orgasm, but might as well help him out if he enjoys watching. A couple of swirls and flicks of my clit with my finger and my hips are moving to meet his in time with each push and drag.
“Shit, Petra,” he grunts out. “You are so fucking sexy.”
In response, I pinch my nipple with my other hand, and my eyes half close with the pleasure coming from so many parts of my body. I can feel my muscles clenching around him as the orgasm starts deep inside, but it’s chased by a second orgasm from the feel of my finger on my clit, and experiencing both at the same time has me gasping and panting out expletives over and over as the waves of heat and sensation roll through me.
Sasha’s eyes close tightly as he pushes into me with one final thrust, and feeling him pulsing against my inner walls sends me completely over the edge. I come apart with a sound that’s half scream, half sigh, but he reaches down and covers my mouth, bending forward whispering, “This ends very differently if we wake Stella up.”
I glance around, for the first time considering that she might be able to see us or hear us from her bedroom. But then I remember that her bedroom looks out onto the terrace, and from that angle it’d be impossible to see us in here.
“How does it end if we don’t wake her up?” I ask as he pulls back to look at me.
He looks over his shoulder toward my bedroom door. “Let’s find out.”
When I wake up in the morning, everything is sore. My body feels like I spent last night doing gymnastics, which in a way I guess isn’t far off. Sasha was asleep with his arms around me when I dozed off, and even though I know he wouldn’t have wanted Stella to find us here together, it’s still disappointing to wake up alone.
I roll over to find a note on my nightstand.
I am taking Stella to school—didn’t want to wake you. Then I’m off to practice and a media event and will be home midafternoon. Text me if you have a busy day and want me to pick Stella up from school. Also, don’t forget Tom and Avery are coming over for dinner tonight.
I glance up at the clock. Shit!
I fly out of bed so fast I almost levitate. I forgot to set my alarm last night, and I have a meeting in Brooklyn in half an hour to go over decorating the rooftop I’ve rented for Aleksandr’s end of season party with the rental company that will be supplying the decor. Even if I walked out the door right now, which I can’t do because I’m naked, there’s no way I could make it there in time. I shoot off a text to the building manager and my contact at the rental company letting them know I’m going to be late, and asking them to start measuring the space and getting any other details they need while they wait for me to get there. Then I order a ride and give myself the ten minutes until they arrive to get dressed and ready, all the while reminding myself that it’s not Aleksandr’s fault for not waking me.
When I walk back into the apartment at 6:30 p.m., I’m in a mood. It’s been a long day, the kind where everything that could possibly go wrong has gone wrong.
“There you are,” Aleksandr says, walking into the entryway as I’m setting my bag down on the large bench that sits against the wall. He takes one look at me, all sweaty and disheveled because I didn’t check the weather and dressed way too warmly for this spring day, and asks, “What’s wrong?”
I remind myself again that it’s not his fault I overslept. I’m a big girl and can be responsible for setting my own alarm. But if he’d just woken me up before he left, this day would have been very different. Or if I just hadn’t slept with him last night, I’d have woken up well-rested and ready to take on the world. The thought that’s been running through my mind most of the day returns—getting involved with him in this way was a mistake.
“It’s been a day.”
His face softens. “Is there anything I can do to make it better?”
“Doubtful.” I’m not pouting exactly, but I’m also glancing into my bag like I’m looking for something, so I don’t have to meet his eye. I’m afraid he’d see right through me—through the bravado and the success, and find someone who’s actually just barely holding it all together.
“How about if I make you a drink while you hop in the shower? Tom and Avery will be here in an hour.”
I try not to physically deflate at the mention of having company tonight. I completely forgot, and I don’t feel up to that at all, even though of course I’d love to see Avery again. I feel like she’s the kind of person I could be friends with—real, unassuming, fun—if I were staying in New York. But you’re not, I remind myself.
It’s a well-timed reminder because Aleksandr wraps his arms around me, giving me the supportive hug he somehow knows I need. I rest my head on his shoulder, thinking how easy and natural things feel with him when we’re not fighting. Though even the fighting feels like foreplay. And yet, this is all temporary. It has to be. I have a life and career back in Park City and a talk show that’s supposed to start in LA soon. I can’t stay, even if I wanted to.
But I don’t, right?
“What’s wrong?” I hear Stella’s voice and open my eyes to see her standing behind Sasha.
“Nothing,” I tell her, thinking that she must have seen my emotions flashing across my face. If I don’t intentionally guard myself, my face shows everything I’m feeling. “I just had a bad day and needed a hug.” I step back and Sasha’s arms fall to his side, then I take a few steps past him toward Stella. “It helped, but maybe I need one from you too?”
She wraps her arms around my waist and squeezes as hard as she can, and I glance over my shoulder at Sasha. He’s standing there with his hand on the back of his neck, his button-down shirt rolled up at his elbows and pulling tightly across his chest and shoulders, and another unreadable expression on his face.
I glance back down at Stella. “I have to go hop in the shower and get ready for dinner.”
“Why do you have to get ready for dinner?” she asks.
“Because I had a rough day and feel gross, and I want to shower and start all over.”
Her eyes light up like the thought never occurred to her that a shower could have the power to wash away a bad day and let you start fresh. “That’s a good idea,” she says. “Maybe I should take a shower and wash away my day too.”
“You had a bad day?” I ask.
She nods and I take her hand. “Come tell me about it while I pick out something to wear tonight, then we’ll both take our showers and wash the ickiness away, okay?”
We head down the hall together, hand in hand, and I let her tell me about all the things that went wrong in her day: she didn’t get to sit next to Harper during circle time, she struggled with subtraction at one of her math stations, Jason got her out during dodgeball in PE, and their music teacher was sick so they had to watch a boring video with a substitute instead. I’m reminded of what I’ve heard so many parents say: little people, little problems. But they are big problems to her, and I’m glad this is the stuff she’s focused on instead of worrying about things like how her uncle will manage to adopt her.
I’ve just stepped out of the shower with a towel wrapped around me when my phone buzzes rapid-fire on the counter. I pick it up to see several messages from Sierra. I do the math and realize it must be close to midnight in Europe, which is where I think she is right now.
Sierra: Beau was just catching up on the playoff games from the last few days. He paused during the New York/Philadelphia game and was like “Is that Petra?”
Sierra: Imagine my surprise to see you at a game in New York, wearing a player’s jersey and giving him fuck-me eyes on national television?!?!
Sierra: What the hell is going on, and whose kid were you holding?
Oh shit. Well, this is going to be hard to explain.
Petra: It is a REALLY long story and I can’t explain right now because I am about to host dinner for two people I hardly know. Can we catch up about this in a few days? I’m back in Park City this weekend. Let’s chat then.
Sierra: You’re seriously going to make me wait almost a whole week for answers?
Petra: Sorry babe, but yes. I am still in NY and can’t really talk about this while I’m here.
Sierra: Wait! Still WHERE in NY? Like, you’re not dating this guy, are you?
Petra: No, definitely not dating him. I’ll catch you up on all of this soon. Promise!
There is no way I can update Sierra on this without telling Jackson and Lauren, too, and I can only imagine that Jackson is going to be hurt I didn’t tell her when I talked to her last week. And now she’ll know that it wasn’t work that kept me from seeing her when she was in Park City, it was staying here with and for Aleksandr. Oh shit, how much can I even tell them?
There’s a knock on my bathroom door and it’s cracked open. I throw my phone down on the counter as if I have something to feel guilty about.
“Okay if I come in?” Sasha’s voice floods the room, and I swear I can feel it glide over my skin like a caress. I feel that familiar pull between my legs and have to remind myself that I spent most of the day thinking that sleeping with him was a mistake. It’s only going to make an already complicated situation that much more difficult.
“Sure,” I say.
He pushes the door open and reaches over to set a copper cup on the counter. “I made you a Moscow Mule. I hope you like those?”
“I like any drink that’s not too sweet,” I tell him.
His gaze flows over me, taking in my hair piled in a messy bun on top of my head, my makeup-free face, my bare shoulders, and the towel that’s wrapped around me and tucked in between my breasts. His eyes are hungry, and I glance down to where his pants now look like they’re too tight in the crotch. I look back up at him, smirking intentionally.
“I really want to take that towel off you and see how much fun we could have before Stella gets out of the shower,” he tells me.
“Too risky,” I say.
“It took her forever to pick out pajamas for tonight. She just got in the shower. We’ve got at least ten minutes.”
I feel my nipples hardening against my towel.
“We don’t have time,” I say. “Tom and Avery will be here soon.”
His look is both tender and possessive, like he wants to own me, but gently. “I bet we can manage it.”
I know we shouldn’t. It’ll make things feel rushed before our company comes and it’ll make things between us even more complicated than they already are. But my vagina isn’t having any of my logic, it’s literally seeping with desire and sending waves of longing through me.
“How quick can you be?” I ask.
He steps in and closes the door behind him, pushing the button to lock it. “I guess we’ll find out.”
When his lips land on my neck and my towel drops to the floor, the only thought running through my head is: this is how all bad days should end.
