Page 15 of Taming Tesla

NINE

Cari

Stay.

That’s what Patrick said to me when I started to move off his lap.

Stay.

I made some sort of lame excuse about being thirsty. Needing water. I didn’t need water. I started to feel the same trapped, panicked feeling I experienced the day of the storm when we were folding laundry downstairs. I didn’t need water. I needed to get away from him before I did or said something that fucked everything up again.

Instead of letting go, he simply stood up, arms hooked under my ass to hold me in place, and carried me into the kitchen. There, he set me down on the counter so he could pull two bottles of water from the fridge. Handing me one, he leaned against the fridge and cracked the cap on his water, draining the bottle before tossing it in the trash. I think I was two gulps in before he was inside me again—his mouth closing over my throat. His hands pulling me close. His dick, pumping and thrusting inside me, pushing me so perfectly toward orgasm that it took me by surprise, my pussy locking around him, pulling him in deeper with each and every thrust until he’s following me over the edge, coming inside me, his face buried in my neck. His arms wrapped around me. Holding me close like I’m important. Something precious. This time, I don’t feel the urge to run away. I want to stay here, locked in his arms. Feeling his heart, thumping against my chest. His breath on my neck.

And that scares me more than anything.

He carries me to the bathroom and climbs into the shower, turning it on so he can clean me up. He’s tender. Gentle. Washes my hair and my body. Between my legs. Behind my ears. The crooks of my elbows. The backs of my knees. There isn’t an inch of me he didn’t touch. And while he washed, we talked. Not about James or Lisa or anything that might break the spell. We talked about movies we wanted to see. Groceries we need from the store. He told me how Conner earned his Bachelor’s degree from Boston College when he was fifteen, without telling anyone but his mother. He’d been taking classes online over the summer since he was thirteen. While most of us struggled through four years of college because it’s expected or our only chance at a better life, Conner went to college because he was bored.

By the time his friends were either dropping out and getting their GEDs or graduating and joining the military, Conner graduated from Harvard Law. Instead of getting pictures taken in his cap and gown, he took the BAR exam. And ranked first in his class.

Instead of taking one of the dozens of offers to join just about every law firm in Boston, Conner went to MIT and earned two doctorates in fields of study I can’t even pronounce, let alone comprehend. By the time he was twenty-three, Con was both a doctor and a lawyer.

“…And he works as a mechanic?” I say, still not quite able to wrap my head around all of it.

“Tess’s dad owned the garage before Con.” Patrick pulls my towel off its hook and drapes it over my shoulders. “When Mr. Castinetti got sick, he needed money for treatment, so Con offered to buy it. I think because he knew how hard it would be on Tess to watch it go to a stranger. She always assumed it would belong to her someday…” he shrugs. “And now you know,” Patrick says, toweling me off, the corner of his mouth kicked up in a lop-sided grin.

“Now I know what?” I say, rendered breathless for a moment when he reaches down and picks me up again.

“Everything... ish.” He leans in and gives me a kiss before stepping into the hallway. “Your place or mine?” he says, still grinning at me.

Ours. Wherever that is, that’s where I want to go.

Our room. Our bed.

I want to say it. I almost do, but I don’t. I can’t. Because what’s happening between us is like before. It’s an interlude. A reprieve. Sooner or later, no matter what I want, the real world is going to seep through the cracks in our relationship and push us apart, farther and farther, until we can’t ignore them anymore.

Until neither of us can pretend we belong together anymore.

“Yours,” I whisper against his mouth. “It’s closer.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he says, crossing the hall in a handful of strides before he’s stretching me out across his bed, hips pressed into the cradle of my thighs, the blunt, engorged head of his cock rubbing against my belly while he licks his way down the length of me.

“What are you doing?” I ask, my toes curling when he traces his tongue along the place where my thigh and hip meet, his fingers hooking behind my knee, bending my leg.

He looks up at me, giving me a wicked grin. “Working on my novel,” he says, and I laugh, while he uses his grip on my leg to push on my bent knee, opening me wider. “What time is it?” he asks me, right before pressing his tongue past my throbbing pussy lips to drag it up the length of me before flicking it against my clit.

“Si—” My answer shudders away on a low moan, my hands reaching down to thread their fingers through his hair, so I have something to hold on to while he fucks me with his mouth. “Six o’clock,” I finally manage, my hips rolling against the pressure of his tongue.

“Just enough time,” he says, looking up at me as he replaces his tongue with two of his fingers, slipping them inside me to stroke me, slow and deep.

“En… enou—oh,” I gasp, breath stuttering in my chest when his fingers hit the center of me, curling and rubbing against the place inside me that makes me feel like I’m flying while his tongue draws slow circles over my swollen clit. Fisting my fingers in his hair, I pull his face away from me long enough to think straight. Looking down at him, the way his broad, muscular shoulders look, pushed against the soft, quivering flesh of my thighs. My fingers gripped in his dark, damp hair. His green eyes, glittering with lust and something else, something I’ve never seen before. I like it. The way he looks at me. Like he can’t seem to get enough of me. “Enough time for what?”

He gives me another grin, his gaze fused to mine, giving me a slow, deep stroke with his fingers that have my heels digging into the mattress and my back arching off the bed. “To get you dirty all over again.”

When I wake up again, I’m alone. For a moment, I think it was all a dream. Me working up the courage to force myself down the hallway to Patrick’s room. Three years ago, I’d put my tongue in his mouth and my hand on his cock, and he’d shut me down. Last night, was my version of a do-over and I’d finally got it right. I finally took what I wanted. I’m in Patrick’s room. In his bed and I never want to leave.

Smiling, I roll over, giving a little start when I see Patrick sitting in the chair next to his drafting table. It’s cramped and dark in here, the table shoved into a corner, as close as he can get it to the room’s only window. I’m suddenly struck by how unfair it is. How much he’s given up for me. How much he’s given to me. Maybe he could move his drafting table into my room. That would be okay. Just his table. There’s plenty of space. Light. I imagine the two of us working side-by-side. He’d draft his blueprints while I painted him. And this time I’d let him see. I’d let him see himself the way I see him. This time, I’d let him see me. The real me.

“Cari.”

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