A. Jackson - When We Met

“Ah hell,” he blurted out, and then slowly backed me against the wall. The brick felt cool against my fiery skin. All I could hear was the distant sound of the traffic buzzing by on the street and his heavy breaths at my neck. I felt secluded, protected, and unbelievably stimulated.

As his hand hovered on the button of my jeans, his lips found my ear. “Can I touch you everywhere?”

I was momentarily petrified, my knees quivering, but that gave way to my blazing arousal. All I could do was nod—my body was so bombarded by sensation.

I whimpered as he unzipped my jeans and then his hand slipped down the front of my underwear. I was so completely wet and nearly mortified that he’d soon discover that.

“Oh damn,” he grunted out in a tortured voice. “You’re so turned on, aren’t you?”

“Completely,” I said, letting go of any shame.

He pushed my jeans to my knees and then his fingers nudged inside the edges of my underwear. “Did I do this to you?”

I was shuddering and panting. “Yes.”

He swore as his fingers found my center and the sensation was like being suspended off the edge of a cliff. My heart was thrashing and my pelvis was pulsing and all I wanted was to take that leap of faith. With him.

A low growl emitted from his throat and the sound was so visceral I almost let go right then and there. Almost. But still I hovered over the precipice of my own orgasm, nearly embarrassed by how long it had been and how easily I was giving up control from the simple brush of Blake’s fingers.

“Have you been thinking about me in bed at night—like I’ve been thinking of you?”

I quavered as his fingers continued brushing over my nub and then slipped firmly inside me. “Every . . . single . . . night.”

He groaned and sucked expertly on my nipples. “This moment, right here with you, is my fantasy come true.”

“Oh God . . . Blake.” There was an upsurge deep in my belly, like sparks sending a heated footpath up and down my legs and then biting at my center.

All it took was another swipe of his thumb for me to fully and completely detonate. He grasped on to my waist as I shook and mumbled and kept my eyelids firmly shut.

Blake kissed my neck and ear and lips as I became more fully aware of myself and my surroundings. With my lids still closed, mortification began to bear down. I was basically naked, up against a wall with Blake—in my employer’s place of business.

“Open your eyes,” Blake whispered against my lips.

I did so, reluctantly. I found him staring at me in wonder, his eyes bright and clear.

His thumb traced against my throat. “You’re beautiful.”

Blake

It’d been a miserable day. That morning, I’d found my mother passed out on the couch, an empty bottle of wine hidden in the wastebasket. When I began rummaging around, I also found vodka hidden in the back of the cupboard above the stove.

I stood over the sink dumping the contents of the bottle as a storm of emotions swirled inside me: shock, anger, and defeat.

After I drove my brother to school, I nudged my mom awake. “Have you started drinking again?”

“Don’t you dare accuse me of anything,” she snapped.

But then I held up two empty bottles of vodka and immediately saw a flash of mortification in her eyes, before her face fell into her hands. As the realization sank in that she’d been caught and had most certainly fallen off the wagon, she began blubbering and mumbling incoherently.

We’d been here before. Several times. But the sting of it was no less wounding. Though I was beginning to become numb to this feeling of loss I’d experienced practically my entire life, this time was particularly painful, because we had come so far and I had given up so much to get here.

It was always so difficult to hear my mother’s gut-wrenching sobs.

I handed over her cell phone and encouraged her to call her sponsor and attend an AA meeting today. “The counselor said this could happen, Mom. It’ll be okay. You just have to do the work to get to a good place again.”

“I will,” she said, not meeting my eye. “I promise.”

I was so distracted at the construction site that I cut my finger with a putty knife. Thankfully it was Friday and I was supposed to meet Chloe tonight to put the final touches on the runway.

That girl had somehow gotten under my skin. I couldn’t get her out of my fucking head. The noises she made when my fingers were inside her. I could get used to that sound every night. Damn, I was already beginning to miss her, knowing that this might be one of our last nights together.

I went home to shower and change after work and made sure my brother had gotten to his buddy’s house for the night. There’d been a note from my mother that she was out with her sponsor and would be attending her second meeting of the day. Still I wondered why she hadn’t answered her phone or responded to my text, so I drove past her favorite watering hole on the way to meet Chloe.

When I didn’t find her car parked anywhere nearby, I blew out a breath of relief even though something still felt off. Dread had settled dead center in my chest, and my fingers trembled on the steering wheel as I imagined what I might find when I got home later that night.

The moment I stepped into the store, Chloe took one look at me and her jaw went slack. She could sense something was wrong, which didn’t surprise me—anxiety was pressing in on me from all sides. We had been in this confined space together for weeks and had come to know each other’s moods. Why I thought I could gloss over my feelings tonight was beyond me.

“Blake.” She’d begun staining the runway black, but now she set her brush down and approached me cautiously. She wore hip-hugging skinny jeans with a vintage ABBA T-shirt. Her blond hair was loose from her usual dainty clip, the curls framing her face, and damn, she looked sexy. “Talk to me.”

I momentarily shut my eyes and shook my head. For a second I was afraid she’d think it was something she’d done, but I was pretty certain she realized it had to do with something else. “No. I’m okay. Everything’s okay.”

“Please,” she said, stepping closer. “I want to help.”

“You can’t help. Nobody can,” I said, feeling a flash of frustration. “It’s just . . . things are a mess again.”

“Your mom?” Her voice was low and careful.

I scrubbed my fingers over my face. “Yeah.”

She moved behind me, her fingers reaching for my shoulders. “You’re so tense.”

Then her hands began working some kind of magic by deftly massaging my neck and my shoulders. My arms braced the wall in front of me and I let out a moan.

“Feel good?” she said.

“Yeah.” I rolled my neck back against her fingers. “Thank you.”

“What else can I do?” she asked cautiously.

“I . . . I don’t know.” My eyes practically spun in the back of my head from her hands moving over my skin. “What you’re doing is . . . amazing.”

Her fingers slipped beneath my T-shirt as they began kneading the muscles between my shoulder blades. “You want to tell me about it?”

“N . . . No.” My voice stuttered as her hands journeyed down my spine to my waist.

“Take this off,” she said in a soft and tentative voice. After I pulled my shirt over my head, she smoothed her warm fingers over my flesh, as if savoring it.

Her hands traveled to my stomach and it quivered from her touch.

I immediately felt hot and solid for her despite all the chaos going on in my life.

“Blake,” she whispered. Her fingers skimmed up and down my chest and her nails lightly scratched my abdomen.

My hard-on fought against the material of my jeans. “Damn, that feels incredible.”

I just wanted to get lost in this girl.

Her lips found my ear and I shivered from their closeness. “I only want to make you feel good,” she said as her teeth grazed my neck and then trailed down to my shoulder. I pumped out a heavy breath. She turned me on so damned much.

When I felt her breasts flatten against my back and her hand brush over my erection, my arms flexed against the wall. I didn’t even try stopping her. Because hell, I wanted her to touch me.

She unbuttoned and unzipped my jeans, and without hesitation slid her delicate fingers inside. When her small but sure hand gripped me firmly, I groaned loudly.

“Chloe. God,” I strained out. “I’ve imagined you doing this on so many nights.”

Her hot lips began sucking on the back of my neck as her fingers worked me in the front.

After so many days of pent-up sexual frustration from just being around her—smelling her, tasting her skin and lips—I was already close.

I probably should have twisted to look at her, to kiss her sweet mouth. We weren’t even making eye contact, but somehow this felt so damned intimate. To have someone to lean on when everything in my life was going to shit.

Besides, I knew her pretty well by now. Had I turned to face her, she might have balked. More than likely, not seeing my eyes, my expression, made her feel brave—and I didn’t want to ruin this. I needed her fingers on my skin, wanted it so damned badly.

“Christ, I love feeling your hands on me.” My words spurred her on as she gripped tighter and stroked faster.

“Let go,” Chloe mumbled, kissing between my shoulder blades. “Just let it all out.”

And that was exactly what I did. I unleashed all of my frustration and sorrow. And I allowed my uninhibited passion for this girl to sweep me away into a mind-numbing orgasm.