I feel his erection searching against me. I open my eyes as he takes us back upon the bed. Between kisses and brushes against my sex, he works at tearing open a small foil package. For some reason, seeing that heightens my arousal; the thought that he brought it, and perhaps planned through dinner how he would get to use it with me.

He eases enough away from me to slip it on, and then he’s in me, hard and searching at first thrust.

“Oh fuck, Chrissie,” he groans into my mouth pumping, filling, searching in my flesh.

The thrusts are good. I’m almost there. My hips start to move in their own rhythm, using his body to hit all my spots of inner arousal. I’m moving in my own dance. He’s moving in his own dance. Looking for release. Separate, bodies joined, and yet it is strangely right that it should be this way with Neil. The command of our bodies for our own pleasure. Me taking him as I want. Him taking me as he wants. No emotional convolution. Just sex and want and need.

My head starts to sway on the pillow. My breathing matches his own ragged inhales. I’m nearly there, painfully wet and tight around him.

“Oh fuck,” he growls. And then there’s the sensation of Neil, overwhelmed by his climax, the intensity of his release, flooding my veins as he pours into me.

It takes me a moment to realize his body has stopped. My body still wants. It continues to seek even after that last oh fuck.

I open my eyes. He’s still in me. On me. Balancing on his arms, breathing heavily, his features awash with almost relieved contentment.

I’m pulsing and close to the edge. He looks down at me and pulls out, easing off of me. He takes the condom off, tossing it carelessly on the floor.

I stare. I pant in. I pant out. I brush the passion damp hair from my face. I fight to ignore my still overly alert body.

I don’t know what is on my face, but Neil’s expression changes, a slight reddening moving across his features. He lays his head back on the pillow. He covers his face with his forearm. He looks really cute flushed with embarrassment. It makes it almost OK that I didn’t get to come.

“I’m sorry. I’ve been thinking about this for three fucking months. I’m not usually so…”his voice trails off.

“Quick,” I whisper, biting my lower lip.

He laughs. He lifts his arm from his face. His eyes are smiling when he looks at me. “It’s been a long time. I haven’t been with anyone since my ex.”

I curl into his sex damp flesh, laying my cheek on his chest. His skin feels good against my flesh. I rub my nose against him. I even like the smell of Neil.

“How long ago was that?” I ask.

“Six months.”

My eyes round. “You haven’t had sex in six months?”

“Nope.” He holds up his hand. “All these calluses are not only from playing guitar.”

I flush and he laughs. He curls into me and starts to kiss me. “If you give him a blow job, I bet he’ll come back really quickly also.”

I crinkle my nose.

“No?” he whispers between kisses.

“No.”

He starts moving down my body, his kisses roaming from my neck to breast to the full underside. My alert sex ticks upward in need. With his hands, he eases me onto my back, his lips roaming lower. To my navel. My pelvis. My mound. He kisses the inside of my thigh. My fingers curl around the sheets.

And very slowly, teasingly, he brings his tongue to that spot on my clit that makes me crazy. Then it is nothing but breaths and fingers, tongue and tantalizing strokes. My back arches. My body tightens in record speed. Damn, he’s good, really good at this. For some reason, I didn’t expect Neil to be.

My legs start to quake and I grind into his mouth. He doesn’t pull back. He doesn’t toy with me, bringing me to the edge, and then taking it from me. He takes me directly there. I come hard and fast against his face.

I’m panting heavily, trying to calm my scattered senses. He kisses his way back upward on my body, claiming my mouth with his, his tongue swirling in me so I can taste me on him. His finger lightly glides over my still pulsing sex.

“It sucks that you’re so quick,” he whispers into my ear.

My lids fly wide. It’s then I see the grin on his face.

“It’s been a long time,” I say sheepishly.

Neil reclines on his side, looking down at me. “Since Alan Manzone?”

I don’t correct him. For some reason I don’t want to tell Neil about my one night stand in August. And in truth, I don’t even count that, because that sexual experience didn’t even touch me.

He lies back on the bed, pulling me against his body.

“What’s with that scar on your wrist?” he asks quietly. “And the ones on your stomach and leg.”

My gut churns. I should have prepared for that question. I didn’t. I didn’t expect Neil to notice the burns on my body, or to ask. And I’m really not prepared for it, emotionally. I’ve only talked about this to three people: Linda Rowan, Jack, and Alan.

I take in a ragged breath. “I used to have problems, Neil. I used to be a pretty fucked up girl.”

Neil’s eyes widen, answering in sympathetic heaviness. He turns on his side, moving me into the spoon of his body.

Into my hair, he says, “I used to have problems, too. I was pretty fucked up.”

I debate with myself if I should ask what kind of problems. “Are you OK now?” I ask instead.

His chest shimmies with a hard exhale of breath. “I don’t know, Chrissie. I’m trying to be.”

I kiss his arm. “I don’t know if I am either.”

We lie together, sexually spent, emotionally messy, and in this companionable sadness hovering in the room, we feel good. Really, really good together.

~~~

A sound wakes me and I turn over in bed to find Neil grabbing his clothes from the ground and quickly dressing.

“Where are you going?” I ask.

Neil looks at me, continuing to dress. “Fuck, Chrissie. We fell asleep. I should have been out of here hours ago.”

I rub the sleep from my eyes. I stare at the window, the light pouring in through the shutters.

He stops at the bed. “What do you think is the best way out of here? I don’t want to run into Jack. Do you think he’s still asleep?”

My eyes round. His nervousness and anxiousness makes me start to laugh.

“I wouldn’t count on Jack being asleep. He wakes at dawn every day. He’s probably sitting by the pool already.”

Neil’s expression is priceless. I bury my face into the pillow, laughing until I’m nearly in tears.

I peek up at him.

“Fuck.” Neil runs an anxious hand through his hair. His eyes sharpen. “What do you think he’s going to do?”

I shrug. “I don’t know.” And I really don’t. I didn’t think that far ahead last night.

I sit up, tugging the blanket with me to cover my naked breasts.

“Just leave,” I suggest.

Neil’s eyes widen. “Like that. Just walk out there.”

He’s staring at me like I’m out of my mind.

His gaze softens. “I had a good night with you, Chrissie.”

My flesh warms. “I had a good night with you.”

He goes to the bathroom, comes back with a handful of tissues, and starts picking up the condoms off the floor. I lay back against the pillow on my side watching him.

“When do you go back to Berkeley?” I ask.

“This afternoon.”

He balls up the condoms and tissues, almost tosses it in the trash, then thinks better of it and shoves it into his pocket.

I stare up at him. “I leave today too. Don’t fly. Drive back with me.”

It looks like he’s debating with himself and a whisper of hurt moves through me since I can’t figure out why he would debate that. Free transportation over a high-priced plan ticket? A no brainer. Does he want space from me?

He sinks down beside me on the bed and kisses me.

“What time are you leaving?” he asks.

“I want to get on the road around eleven.”

Neil nods. “I can get Mia’s car back to her and packed up by then.”