Page 31 of Blitz

It’s never been just sex with Tucker. It’s deeper. None of the other guys I’ve been with have ever been able to measure up to my first love, the guy who taught me everything I know about love and being loved. I’ve never doubted how he felt about me, right up until the bitter end. Insecurity got the better of me. Doubt controlled me.

Not any more. We’re together again. We’ll be stronger for having been tested, for having gone through the past two years. If we can get through this, we can deal with anything life throws our way.

Right?

Chapter thirteen

Tucker

I don’t know what I expected from this track party. Maybe I’ve been watching too many 90s movies. There’s alcohol, yeah, but no bong, no illicit drugs, no drunk people making out. It’s just ten or twelve really fit athletes drinking and hanging out on the couch, a basketball game on the TV.

Mason all but shoves me into an armchair and then crawls into my lap. I don’t think this chair is rated for my weight, much less our combined weight, but until it collapses beneath us, I can’t make myself care.

She has a beer in her hand—just one, she said as she took the bottle, then offered me one—and she curls into my chest, her head on my shoulder. My hand is on her knee, drumming out a beat that only the two of us know. She’s talking to her friends, laughing, having a good time. I can’t focus on the conversation. I can’t focus on much of anything except for the feel of her in my lap, her lithe curves and strong muscles.

I kiss her temple and tighten my arms around her. She sighs, sinking into my chest. One of her friends—the German one, I forget her name—says something and she laughs. The other woman—Melanie? Melissa?—grins and leans forward to clink their beer bottles together.

It’s none of my business if she drinks the night before her race. It’s none of my business if she needs to party to bleed the adrenaline off. Just because it’s not the way I live my life doesn’t make her way inferior.

But it does worry me.

I sip my water and zone out. Her friends are nice enough, but I’m not in the mood to chat. There’s a basketball game I’m only half paying attention to. The rest of me is focused on how good Mason smells. On how good it feels to have her in my arms again. On how long I have to wait to get her naked.

I don’t want to jump right back into bed. We can’t blink and have things go back to the way things were. We’ve both changed. We’ve grown up. We’re different people now.

At the same time, it’s been two and a half years since she and I last had sex, the good, emotion-purging kind of toe-curling marathon sex that sets your heart on fire and makes your blood sing with desire. Once I get her back in my bed, I don’t plan on letting her leave for a week. Maybe two. Who needs classes? Who needs food? We can just stay in bed all day and never leave.

I don’t experience sexual attraction to people I don’t already have an emotional bond with. I’ve never experienced that raw, animalistic magnetism to any other person except for Mason. When we do hook up, it’s with the understanding that we have a solid foundation and a certain comfort with one another. We’re on the same page in terms of our relationship and where it’s going.

My moms were cool with my brother and me having sex under their roof. Jamal always had a rotating cast of girlfriends, never in his bed for more than a week or two before he was moving on to the next one. They’d rather we do it in the house than sneak around and get into trouble. They kept the bathroom cupboards stocked with condoms and lube and made sure we knew how to be safe. Mason’s parents were so checked out of her life, they barely noticed if she didn’t come home—her brother, my best friend, cared more than they did, and his issue was more that I was sticking it to his sister than that she wasn’t sleeping in her bed at night.

And now we’re living on our own. Yes, we both have roommates, but that’s not the end of the world. We both have private bedrooms with doors that lock.

Tonight isn’t the night. She has a meet tomorrow. She needs her rest.

Tomorrow night, though…

I slide my hand up from her knee to her thigh. Her quads twitch through the thin fabric of her leggings. Mason leans forward and places a light kiss to the side of my neck. Her teeth scrape over the pulse point and my cock kicks in my jeans.

“Don’t start something you aren’t going to finish,” I warn her, my voice low and rough. She grins, tipping her face up for a sweet kiss.

“Who said I wasn’t going to finish?” She scratches through my beard and I nuzzle into her like a cat getting cuddles. Her touch is electric. My veins pulse with heat, an electrical current I can’t control. I don’t want to control it.

“We can’t. Not tonight.”

She’s disappointed but resigned. “Tomorrow night?”

“Tomorrow night I’ve got plans.” I kiss her palm. “They involve you, my bed, and no clothes. How does that work for you?”

Mason grins at me, her full lips curving into a sultry smile. She presses a kiss to my lower lip, drawing it between hers. With a groan, I slide my hands up into her hair and kiss her properly. She deepens the kiss. Her hands fall to my chest, fisting the thick fabric of my hoodie.

I can’t get enough of her. Two and a half years feels like fifty. It’s been way, way too long.

There’s a catcall from somewhere in the room. For the first time, I remember that we aren’t alone.

I ease back, and she follows me, refusing to disengage. I lean back in the armchair and adjust our angles so she’s sprawled over my lap. Her ass rests directly over my hard and eager cock.

“Not here,” I mumble through the kiss.