Love Not at First Sight by Sarah Ready

7

Veronica

Sam kisses me.His mouth is warm and gentle. He brushes his lips over mine, and when I kiss him back he makes a low growl in his throat. The noise sends a vibration through me and my body lights up. He starts to pull away, so I send my hands into his hair and pull his mouth back to mine.

“I wish we’d met out there,” I say.

He takes my mouth again and sends his tongue over my lips. I shiver when he pulls back.

“Where? Tell me how you’d want us to meet,” he says.

I draw my hands through his hair, over his forehead and down his nose. It’s narrow and there’s a bump at the end. I feel his lips with my fingertips. They’re firm, but his bottom lip has the slightest pout. His jaw is hard and the stubble growing in tickles my fingers. I move my hands down his neck, I feel his pounding pulse and move to his shoulders. The muscles in them tense and I move my hands down his biceps.

“You’re muscular for a computer geek,” I say. “I wonder what you look like.”

He grunts and pulls me down to his mouth again. I play with his bottom lip and enjoy the comfort of being in his arms.

When he pulls back from my mouth I draw my hands down his face and cup his jaw.

“I look like me,” he says. “Tallish, short hair, hazel eyes.”

I laugh and I realize it doesn’t actually matter what he looks like. His appearance doesn’t matter at all.

“Alright. Let me think,” I say. I relax against him as his hands wander over my back, my arms, and draw a slow circle over my lower back. It’s getting late and I’m tired, my head still hurts, I’m hungry, thirsty, and we might not make it out of here alive. But Sam’s hands, circling slowly across my back, my ribs, my sides are making me feel safe and…loved.

Everywhere he touches fills with a sparkling liquid warmth that spreads until I feel like he and I are floating and there is nothing except us. I can’t think of anything except the next place he’s going to touch and the way my breasts have gone heavy against his chest and the place between my thighs is starting to ache. I can feel him growing hard beneath me. I shift until I’m centered over him and then I move my hips, just barely, so that I rub along his length.

He lets out a harsh breath and his hands still.

My word, I want him. I want him so much.

“We would meet one weekend on the White Pine Trail,” I say. My voice sounds languid and huskier than usual.

“We would?”

I rock my hips against him and he hisses. A warm spark lights inside me and starts to burn.

“We wouldn’t like each other at first,” I say.

His fingers press into my hips and he pulls me closer. I rock against him.

“We wouldn’t?”

“No. I’d still think all men are players. And you, being a man—”

He sends his hands up under my shirt and spreads his fingers around my ribs, then his thumbs rub along the underside of my breasts.

“Yes?” he asks.

I take his mouth and his hands rise up and he circles my nipples.

“A tallish, short-haired, hazel-eyed man,” I say.

“And you being a medium-height…”

“Long-haired, blue-eyed woman.”

“Exactly.” He presses his mouth to my neck and kisses the underside of my jaw.

“I wouldn’t like you. And you would…”

“Ask you to dinner,” he says. He lifts his hips and his length hits me right…there. “Because, the minute I saw you, I’d realize that you were special and that I’d never felt this way about anyone before and—”

“I’d say no. Because I’d think you were a player and just using pick-up lines.”

He cocks his hips again and I gasp. My clit throbs and each time he hits it a pulse of warmth rushes through me. I grab his shoulders and move against him.

“Then, when you said no, I’d try again,” he says in a low, urgent voice. “I’d bring you flowers and ask you to come to New York City. I’d take you on my favorite walks in Central Park, you’d climb the boulders, then, we’d get coffee and cookies at this old Hungarian bakery I grew up by, and that night I’d take you home and make you pasta. We’d go to the roof deck, eat spaghetti, drink wine, and watch the sun set over the river.”

I reach down and feel the thick ridge of him. His length jerks up when I touch him. I carefully undo his button and then unzip his fly. I take him in my hand. He’s hot and smooth and I run my hand over him. He lets out a harsh exhale.

“I’d say no,” I tell him. “I’d think you were pulling out all the player stops, tempting me with sunsets and wine and homemade dinners. I’d tell you to get lost.”

He arches under me when I stroke my hand down his length. I revel at the feel of him in my hand. The softness, the heat. There’s the smallest bit of moisture at the tip of him. I lean down and kiss him there, taste the salt of him.

His hands stop stroking me and then he carefully moves them down. He traces my stomach, the flare of my hips, and then he circles round and pushes my pants and panties down until he finds my clit.

He circles his finger over me and I cry out.

“Then, I’d try again. I’d ask you to go with me to New Zealand, to climb in Fiordland National Park. Or if that was too far, I’d take you to Italy to climb the Dolomites. We’d stay at a villa with a patio and an outdoor oven, and we’d drink Italian wine, and eat olives and fresh bread and—”

I kiss him and I can taste the Italian sun, olive groves, focaccia bread and red wine. His finger circles over my clit and then he sends a finger inside me. I cry out into his mouth and he pushes in deeper. I clench around him and I want more. I need more of him.

I grasp his length harder and stroke down, matching his rhythm.

“I’d say no,” I tell him. Then I cry out as he puts another finger into me. “Tell you to leave me be. But I’d be intrigued, because players usually give up and find easier targets.”

“But I’m not a player.”

“No. And I also like tallish, short-haired, hazel-eyed men.”

I can barely think anymore, I can only feel. His fingers inside me, his hand stroking my clit, his mouth, sucking my neck, kissing my jaw, his body warm and solid beneath me. The hot, hard, softness of him in my hand and the pressure I feel growing at his base. He throbs in my hand and I clench in response. I’m warm, I’m safe, and even though it’s dark I feel like between us we have all the light in the world.

“I’d try again,” he says, and his voice is rough and strained. “I’d keep trying. Because the more I saw you the more I’d know, you and I…” He stops as I clasp him tighter. Pump him up and down. He growls and I stroke him harder.

“Veronica,” he says. “I can’t—”

“We can.” I kiss him.

He growls and something unleashes in him. He pulls me to him, sends his hands faster, harder. His mouth moves over me. Each sensation becomes a bright, throbbing light. His kiss, a spark. His hands inside me, a fire. And the growing, aching need…I shout out, ride the exquisite brightness…it’s as bright as a star. I feel the heat of his cum. I clench around his hands in response, and I ride the shooting stars of my orgasm. Until finally, finally, I fall back to him and settle into the darkness.

I feel boneless and liquid. I stay on top of him, happier and more content than I have been in…ever.

And how strange is that? Considering we’re staring death in the face.

Sam wraps his arms around me and runs a small circle over my back. I wonder why fate didn’t pair me with Sam. If it had, I never would’ve run.

He feels like he should be mine.

“What would you do next?” I whisper. “After I said no again. After I told you to get lost and never come back?”

His hand pauses. “I guess I’d ask you to go on a walk.”

“A walk?”

“If I couldn’t entice you with dinners, or city lights, or romantic trips, I’d ask if you’d like to go on a walk. You could be you, and I could be me, and we could walk together.”

“Just walk?”

“That’s right. I’d walk next to you and you’d walk next to me.”

“And we could walk anywhere?”

“Wherever we liked.”

“But we’d do it together?”

“That’s right.”

I rest my head against his chest and listen to his heart. “That sounds nice,” I say.

I drift to sleep, lulled by his heartbeat and the soft rocking motion of his breath.