Keeping Pace Read online

  The distant sound of catcalls was the only thing that kept me from melting into him right there. It was the noise of onlookers, enjoying or perhaps disgusted by our display. I mentally kicked myself for becoming so swept up in him publicly. I didn’t know my neighbors well, but I retained a bit of knowledge about them and they must have learned a few things about me. I had an appearance to keep up, and seductress was not the image I wanted others to envision when they thought of the widow next door.

  “Come inside,” I said when I found the will to pull away. My heart pounded, and I was almost breathless.

  We didn’t speak any more after Josh closed the door, and I expected him to pounce. A strap of my dress had fallen down my shoulder, and I considered briefly letting the other one fall as well. I wanted to stand nude before him, this man who desired me.

  His hand lighted on my back, at the fallen strap, as if he’d been reading my thoughts. His touch was light, but his fingers burned my skin as he pushed the strap back onto my shoulder. Surprised, I turned.

  “Thank you, but that’s not… I thought maybe…”

  Josh lifted the box. “It’s Friday night, and we have the entire weekend ahead of us. I want to do this right, Regina.”

  “Food first?”

  “Dinner and a movie. Right.”

  The conversation directed us toward the living room. After finally noticing the black case, I pointed toward the DVD player. There wasn’t a decorative cover on the case, so the movie inside remained a mystery for now. Josh made himself at home, reaching for the remote control before operating the player. Within seconds the sound of the machine opening and closing filled the silence.

  He’d set the pizza box on the coffee table, and I settled onto the couch perched before it. By now my stomach rumbled noisily. “What kind of toppings did you get?”

  Josh frowned as he stood and made his way next to me. “How much of yesterday do you remember?”

  Heat bloomed on my cheeks. “The part that counts,” I said shyly.

  He laughed. “No—I mean afterward. When we were in your bedroom. You were so sleepy…” His face softened. “And beautiful. The most content I’ve ever seen a woman.”

  How did I respond to that? Besides blushing, of course. Josh managed to compliment me in almost everything he said, with almost everything he did. The best part of it all was that it came to him genuinely. I couldn’t detect the slightest bit of effort on his part. He didn’t have to try to seduce me. He just did.

  “You said you wanted pepperoni and onions,” he continued. “Not the most date-friendly but probably pretty tasty.”

  “Oh my God. I love that combination!” I turned toward the television, glad the previews had played on as we chatted. “And the movie?”

  Josh kicked off his shoes and lifted one leg onto the couch. He opened his arms, inviting me into his embrace. Without hesitation I moved to him, laying my back to his chest. We cuddled together like old lovers, as if we did this every night of our lives.

  “Also not the most romantic, and I cannot believe how difficult it was to find.” Josh reached for a slice of pizza, handing me one glistening with grease. “But my lady’s wish is my command…”

  I screeched when the credits finally rolled and the old familiar scenes came to life. “You’re wonderful,” I exclaimed, already glued to the screen.

  Josh chuckled. “I cannot believe for our first date, we’re watching Pete’s Dragon.”

  Chapter Five

  “What did you do today?” I asked him after we’d finished eating. The movie played in the background, but to make this the date Josh wanted it to be, a little conversation was in order.

  “In between kicking myself for not getting your number before I left, I did the most mundane thing I could to stop thinking about the way you felt last night.”

  I smiled. I don’t think I’d ever stopped blushing. “And what was that?”

  “Made some headway on my dissertation, finally. The Xbox isn’t going to write it for me—”

  “Your dissertation?” I sat up, stunned. When he said he was in grad school, I’d assumed he was working toward a master’s degree. Not a doctorate.

  He pulled me against him again. “Yeah. If I ever finish it, it’s off to the real world for me.”

  “What are you studying?”

  Josh remained silent for so long I thought he might not have heard me. “Physics,” he mumbled.

  Whoa. A PhD in physics. Nothing to sneeze at. “What kind?”

  “It’s nothing. It’s stupid.” He sighed, his chest expanding and lifting me away from him for a few seconds. “It’s just something I’m good at.”

  Josh started to make more and more sense to me. Nothing about him was typical. He behaved like someone beyond his years. Had to be tremendously smart for physics to be something he was good at. Despite being a good-looking guy, he masturbated for his pleasure and, as far as I could tell, didn’t have a girlfriend of any kind. For him to want to be with a woman who was older than him now seemed right, somehow.

  “You know,” I said, running my hand across the top of his thigh, “I find smart guys to be very, very sexy.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Oh yeah. Quantum theory…” I scrambled to think of something physics-like. “Nano technology, all of it fascinates me.”

  “What about splitting atoms? Or redirecting protons?”

  I mock-shuddered with arousal. “Gets me very hot.”

  “Charge particle beams?”

  I moaned shamelessly.

  His warm tongue traced the outline of my ear. I shuddered for real this time when he pulled my lobe into his mouth. “Then you’re going to love hearing all about elementary excitations using pump-probe spectroscopy.”

  I had no idea what the hell he was talking about, nor did I care. Pete and his dragon had probably moved on to happily ever after without us and bully for them. “Talk physics to me, baby.” Turning, I lifted my chin, seeking his lips with mine.

  “Gina,” he whispered before claiming me.

  Josh wrapped his arms around my waist, his hold tightening as we kissed. I tasted the spiciness of the pizza on his tongue, but it only served to fuel the heat between us. I could spend the next hundred years analyzing why Josh was attracted to me and whether or not I should allow it, but the moment we kissed, our natural chemistry made me forget my doubts.

  I twisted in his arms, needing to minimize the barriers between us. Our clothing was hindrance enough. Josh threaded his fingers in my hair, holding me still above him, forcing me to endure blazing kisses and nothing more for the moment. Somehow I managed to snake my hands beneath his shirt, pressing my bare skin to his. My young genius had an abdomen made of granite, the muscle unyielding beneath my questing fingers. I couldn’t help but think about a few nights ago when I’d watched that same stomach flex during the height of pleasure. Almost the same experience I wanted him to have now with me.

  For as much as I’d been thinking about him since I arrived home, I was already primed to move to better things. I wanted Josh naked now, and whether on this couch or in the bedroom, I wanted him inside me.

  “So impatient,” he murmured before delving in for another heart-stopping kiss. As always, he could read my mind, almost before I knew what I was thinking.

  “We did foreplay last night.” I pushed the T-shirt up, and Josh helped me lift it away from him the rest of the way.

  “I’ve been hard all day thinking about it. Trust me, I remember,” he replied. I reached for the dual straps of my dress, ready to lower them when Josh’s hands captured mine. “I’ve also been fantasizing about this for at least ten years. Please. Let me…”

  Could it really have been that long since he’d wanted me? It didn’t seem right somehow. “Wait…” I continued to assault his mouth, his jaw, his neck with burning kisses. “Ten years?”

  Josh stopped writhing to study my face. “You’re the older woman next door every guy wants to be his first. Don’t tell me y
ou didn’t know that.”

  “But I didn’t.” And what was this business about being his first? Talk about pressure.

  A look of horror must have crossed my face. Josh smiled, then pressed his lips to mine again. “I lost my virginity when I was nineteen. I decided I couldn’t wait for you any longer.” His fingers curled into the flimsy straps on my shoulders.

  “Late bloomer?” I teased. While nineteen was a perfectly acceptable age to have sex for the first time, I couldn’t imagine Josh being hard up for opportunities to do so when he was even younger.

  “Not exactly.” Shivers raced down my spine as his fingers traced small circles on my skin. “You used to wear your hair long.”

  “I thought it was so very chic at the time.” Also, so very easy to pull into a ponytail.

  “It reached down your back to here. And you used to wear heels to work. Long legs extending down from a skirt that ruffled in the breeze. But your top, the one I’m thinking of, was still classy. Elegant…” His gaze lifted. “Not just a onetime thing. All the time.”

  Transfixed, I listened to the hushed reverence in his voice. To the way his memory of me transported Josh back in time.

  “You tell me what teenage girl could hold a candle to the image you presented, day in and day out. I couldn’t have you, but I wanted someone with your same aura to be my first. Someone who could make me forget myself just by looking at her.”

  A thousand questions and a hundred denials flitted through my mind. I thought about arguing against the notion he’d admired me from afar with such sweet attention. My mouth fell open, incapable of forming words. “Flattered” didn’t begin to cover my emotional state during this moment.

  Finally I said, “But you found her eventually.”

  “I had sex for the first time eventually, yes.” He gave me another sexy, shy smile. “I didn’t meet the woman like that until yesterday.”

  Not speaking, I clasped his hand in mine and brought it back to the strap of my dress. If he still yearned to be with that woman, the one he’d described, it would be now.

  I watched his eyes as he revealed me slowly. The amount of want, the anticipation of this moment, bloomed in them. His face became youthful then. One of a boy at Christmas, about to open what he knows will be his favorite present.

  Patrick used to say he loved my femininity. While I haven’t been abundantly blessed in the chest or butt area, he’d said I could never be mistaken for anything but a woman even at a distance. I couldn’t have felt any more feminine or any more desired as Josh touched me now.

  Burning with anticipation, I waited for the brush of his breath on my breasts. Josh looked at me, into my eyes. The look said it wasn’t my breasts but being with me he anticipated. It was an expression belonging to the old soul I’d accused him of being, and the guard I didn’t realize I’d erected in those few seconds relaxed.

  Still looking into my face, Josh leaned forward. His mouth opened against me, pulling one rosy nipple into the wet warmth. For as much heat as he generated, I shivered, throwing my head back and focusing on that single point of pressure. The way his tongue circled and teased my nipple. He used a fingernail to gently scrape against the swollen point of my other breast, and another shiver raced through my limbs.

  I held him to me, stroking through his hair. Holding the sides of his face. Josh made a small noise, part moan, part sigh, and a rush crashed into me. He was moving too slowly, too tenderly, and it wasn’t what I wanted. This was lust between us, and our actions needed to match.

  Pushing against his chest, I drew away from him. My legs were boneless as I stood, my nipple wet from his kiss, now cold outside the comfort of his mouth. Without speaking, I left Josh behind on my couch. As I walked away, the dress dropped to the floor, leaving behind only me, scantily covered by a pair of blue panties—my parting gift, as it were. I didn’t wait for his reaction or his protest that I was leaving. All I needed to see was the evidence of his arousal. If he wanted me badly enough, he’d follow.

  I’d only managed two stairs before he reached me.

  “Gina,” he growled. And it was a growl. A low predatory sound sexy enough to make me come right there and then.

  Chancing a glimpse over my shoulder, it took less than three seconds for me to watch the way his chest rose and fell as he panted. To see he’d unbuttoned his pants and the zipper had fallen partway down. To notice the foil packet clenched between his teeth.

  “Do you know what my fantasy is, Josh?” I asked him. I put as much seduction and coyness into my voice as I could muster between tight breaths.

  “Tell me.” The packet bobbed in his mouth but did not fall.

  “To be taken.”

  A flicker of doubt surfaced in his eyes, but I didn’t linger. It would either fade or it wouldn’t; he would understand or he wouldn’t. A couple in love had limits.

  A couple in lust was free to explore.

  Heart pounding, I made my way up the stairs again. Despite every urge to do so, I didn’t run away from him. Neither did I go slowly. I feigned indifference instead. Once he touched me, though, he’d know the depth of my want. The way my body responded to his presence behind me.

  Josh took the stairs at a run, the sounds of his feet muffled on the carpeting.

  The hands that gripped my shoulders were rough. I froze as fingertips dug into my flesh, the pain erotic enough to make me gasp. My eyes closed as soon as he seized me, my throat tightening at the same time.

  “So you want to be taken?” His voice was gravelly, a sound that made my knees weak.

  “Yes.” A strangled moan.

  Josh dropped one hand, allowing himself a moment to tease the tip of my breast before sliding that large hand into the material of my panties. This was last night all over again, but with a hint of danger that made my pulse race. Last night had been muffled by the taint of alcohol, but now I knew his every harsh breath, the strain of his erection across my bottom.

  “Is this what you want, Gina?”

  His voice skated across my skin, each syllable skimming the surface, exciting me. “Yes.”

  Josh put pressure on my shoulder, lowering me as his finger slid back and forth across the lips of my sex. “You want my hand here, touching you like this. Getting you hot—is that it?”

  I swallowed another moan. “Yes.”

  My knees hit the carpet, and he forced me over. Gave me no quarter, no room for discussion or disagreement. I was at a fever pitch, ready to shudder beneath the force of an orgasm, and Josh hadn’t come close to toying with my body as he had last night. But I was ready to beg him for that touch, to be set free.

  Instead, he forced my hands onto the steps. I kneeled facing away from him, my back arched, my pose submissive.

  “Don’t you fucking move,” he grunted at me.

  Josh yanked on my panties, pulling them down, exposing how wet I’d become. His breath caught at the same time. I was on the brink already, my heart pounding, my head swimming. My knees burned from the carpet’s rough press, but I couldn’t pay that any attention. I focused on Josh. What he would do next. Where he’d take me during my fantasy come to life.

  Josh leaned into me, letting me hear the slow rasp of foil being torn. His breathing was heavy. Rough. I’m sure he did it for effect, and the goose bumps that erupted as I listened were undoubtedly the desired outcome. I tossed my hair to the side, the fire burning across my skin blazing. I needed relief desperately.

  “Don’t. Move.”

  My breath escaped on a rush when I felt his cock probe my cunt. He slid it across my clit, every cell in my body erupting with need. When he paused, just the swollen head gaining entrance to where I needed him most, I wanted to sob with frustration. Then Josh tilted my hips with one hand and surged into me.

  I cried out at Josh’s invasion, my body tensing just as quickly. He immediately went still.

  “Are you okay?” he whispered against my neck, at once becoming the Josh from before. The young man who yearned for m
e.

  I swallowed hard. “Surprised. I’m fine… Just give me a second.”

  He pressed his lips to my neck. My jaw. “Have I hurt you? We can stop—”

  “Shh… Just a second, baby. You haven’t hurt me.” My fingers curled into the carpeting, seeking purchase. “Start slow. That’s all.”

  Josh moved his mouth down my neck, across my shoulders and back. Giving me time to adjust to him. And when at last he began to pump inside me, it was a slow, sweet ride.

  At some point, fantasy blurred with reality. With desire. Josh fucked me well. He made my heart pound with ecstasy and swell with need. His hands explored along my back, cupped the swell of my bottom. He forced my knees wider apart, exposed my clit to his pleasure. His thumbs slid through the moisture coating the inside of my thighs before he rubbed them across the plump bundle of nerves.

  When I tensed this time, I was unable to control it. To stop the waves of pleasure flowing through me. I grasped onto Josh’s hands, entwined my fingers with his. He sensed my nearness and drove into me, increasing the length of strokes, the speed of his rhythmic thrusts.

  “You feel so good, Gina.” His strained words shoved me that much closer, his own loss of control very near. “Tell me what you need.”

  I tried to open my mouth to speak to him, to answer. To say anything. Instead, I whimpered, loving the way he felt inside me. The feelings he’d managed to arouse. I cried out soon after, lost to blinding pleasure. “Josh!”

  My cunt pulled at him, tightening around his cock in rhythmic grasps meant to encourage his release. Josh rode through it for another minute before finally succumbing. He made a strangled sound before clamping his mouth onto the fleshy part of my neck. As his body shuddered behind me, he groaned, biting and suckling hard on my skin.