Breaking (7 page)

Then her whole
body shook as she came.

He was
prepared, so he didn’t let her pull him into climax as well.

She blinked up
at him. “Not yet?”

“No. Not yet. I
think we can do a little more for you.”

He slid his
cock out and turned her over onto her stomach, lifting her butt enough to give
him access to her pussy.

“Feeling like a
caveman, I guess.” She looked at him over her shoulder, fond humor mingling
with the lust.

“Don’t play
coy. I know how much you like it too.”

She did like
it. He knew from experience. And this knowledge was affirmed by the way she gradually
fell into helpless moans as he thrust.

She kept moaning,
not trying to stifle them the way she sometimes did. She gripped the bedding
tighter and tighter as their motion accelerated.

He stroked her
hair. Stroked her back. Pushed into her rhythmically. “So do you like it?”

“Mmm.” Her head
was turned to the side, her cheek pressed against the pillow.

“Was that a
yes?”

“Oh, God, yeah.”
Her voice rose sharply when he lifted her hips a little more, changing the
angle of penetration. “Oh, God, it feels so good.”

“Are you going
to come again?”

“Yeah, oh,
yeah, oh, yeah. Gonna come so hard.”

He gripped the
soft flesh of her bottom and held onto his control. He was doing this for her,
and he was going to make sure she got as much pleasure as possible.

“Tell me when.”
Not just because he liked to hear it but because he might need to mentally
prepare.

“Soon.” Her
body was moving as much as it could in this position, her bottom pressing
eagerly back toward each of his thrusts. “Faster. A little faster.”

He picked up
his speed. “How’s that?”

“So good.
Coming.” Her moans had transformed to helpless whimpers. “So good. Now, now.”

Then she fell into
orgasm again, and it was all he could do to not come with her.

He managed,
though.

She flopped
forward afterwards, and her motion caused him to slip out. He caressed her
gently as she caught her breath, until she turned back and looked at him, her
eyes resting on his still-hard erection. “Wow. You’re ambitious tonight.”

“Always.” With
that, he lifted her on her hands and knees on the bed in front of him, and he
buried his cock in her body again.

“Oh God. This
is going to have to be the last time, or I might just faint away from
exhaustion."

She moved with
him, though, when he started to thrust again. Her body was already primed and
ready, so it didn’t take long for her to reach that familiar urgency once more.

Her skin was
flushed all over and wet with perspiration, and her hair was a tangled mess
around her face. She was looking back at him over her shoulder, and eventually
she was almost sobbing with pleasure as she worked up toward another orgasm.

“Oh God,
Ander!” she gasped, her body bouncing with the force of each of his thrusts.
“Gonna come again! Oh fuck!”

Her body
tightened and released, her pussy clenching around him as she did.

The familiar
rush of need threatened to take him over, but he held on to the threads of his
control because he didn’t want this to end yet.

He’d been
gripping the soft flesh of her ass, but now he reached one hand forward to
stroke her hair back from her hot face. Her elbows had buckled, and her cheek
was pressed against the pillow again, only her bottom now in the air.

The position
satisfied some animalistic urge Ander wasn’t entirely comfortable with. He
couldn’t help but thrust again in tight little pushes against her ass.

Her pussy was really
wet, moisture from his release earlier and her intense arousal leaking out from
where they were connected. Something thrilled inside him when he heard her
huffing out, “Eh, eh,” as another climax tightened on her face.

He knew the
female body better than most men, but he’d never known a woman who was so
responsive, who seemed to want him, need him so much.

He fucked her
until she came again and smothered her cry in the pillow. Then she started to
gasp, “You come too, Ander. Please, baby. You come too.”

He groaned and
held himself still, trying to realign the ruthless grip he had on his own need so
he could finally do as she said.

She pushed
herself up until her arms were straightened. Then she looked at him again over
her shoulder. “Let go, Ander,” she rasped, her throat clearly scratchy from her
enthusiastic verbal responses earlier. “You can let go.”

She reached up
to grip the headboard, changing the angle of penetration. Ander moaned at the
almost painful pleasure and then reached over to brace himself with one hand on
the headboard next to hers.

He started to move
again, pushing hard and rhythmically at first, but then speeding up as the
bone-deep need overtook him. They were shaking the bed wildly, the headboard
banging loudly against the wall. If it hadn’t been an inside wall, they might
be getting complaints from their neighbors.

Both of them
were grunting as he let go of the last threads of his control.

She might have
come again. He couldn’t tell. But her pussy was brutally tight around him as
the intense pressure exploded through balls and rushed through his cock. He
cried out roughly as he let it all go.

Somehow—he
couldn’t remember how—they ended up collapsed on the bed together. He was on
top of her again, and she was holding him with her arms and her legs.

His throat
hurt, his chest hurt, and his vision was actually blurry for several minutes
until he’d managed to recover from the intensity of the release. Lori was
murmuring again. He couldn’t understand what she was saying, but the sound of
her soft voice was comforting, needed.

Finally, she
started to squirm beneath him, and he knew he should relieve her of his weight.
He managed to roll off, onto his back, and he lay staring at the ceiling and
gasping.

Lori rolled out
of bed and limped to the bathroom. When she returned a minute later, she was
still limping.

“You all
right?” he asked, lifting his head in concern when she fell into the bed beside
him again.

“Yeah.” She
smiled at him, looking utterly spent. “No permanent damage.”

“Any damage at
all?” He desperately tried to remember what he’d done to her. He’d let himself
go too much, and he might have hurt her.

“Stop it,” she
chided, reaching over to stroke his chest. He still wore his shirt, but it was
hanging open. Two of the buttons appeared to be torn off. “I’m fine. It was
amazing.”

Ander released
his breath and let himself relax again.

“You all
right?” Lori asked, her voice conveying a familiar hint of worry.

“Why do you
keep asking me that?”

“Because I know
you. And because you know I never let things go. You might as well tell me now,
because I’m not going to stop asking.”

He knew it was
true. When he’d first started seeing her as an escort, she’d asked him question
after question. Things no one had ever asked him before.

He’d had no
idea how to handle it then.

He had no idea
how to handle it now.

He reached out
and pulled her against him, and she nestled beside him.

“Maybe you’ll
tell me soon?” she asked, very softly.

“Yeah,” he
responded, hoping it was true. Surely he’d eventually be capable of telling her
without falling apart completely.

Maybe he could
soon.

Ander didn’t feel any stronger
the following morning. In fact, he was so exhausted that it took him a while
before he could get out of bed.

He was very
much afraid that, if he were stretched any further, he would just break.

Lounging around
all day, however, would be the worst thing he could do. He’d have nothing to occupy
him but his own thoughts, nothing to do but give into the shuddering knowledge
that kept pushing at the edges of his consciousness. So he forced himself to
get up and go back to campus to work.

He worked all
day and mostly succeeded in keeping his mind on the safety of his research. He
called to let Lori know he’d be coming home late. He said she shouldn’t worry
about dinner, but she insisted she’d make something whenever he got home.

Since he knew
she was waiting for him, he left campus at just after eight in the evening,
even though he was tempted to work longer.

He assumed he’d
eventually return to secure mental footing and not have to maneuver around emotional
landmines like this. He just needed more time. Soon, he’d feel like himself
again—the person he’d been ever since retiring as an escort.

At the moment, his
exhaustion was probably the principal factor in his ridiculous neediness, so he
got a cup of coffee on his way home, trying to summon enough energy to spend
time with Lori without collapsing into the pitiful wreck he felt.

She was writing
when he arrived, but she put her laptop away immediately and went to cut some
fresh bread and warm up soup she’d made the day before.

Ander did his
best to make conversation while they ate, but he didn’t do a very good job.
They kept lapsing into long stretches of silence.

Each time he
noticed her watching him anxiously, he would rouse himself enough to ask about
the novel she was writing or talk casually about his research. He couldn’t
sustain any discussion very long, though. It took more focus than he possessed.

He was angry
with himself as they finished and Lori picked up the dishes.

She was worried
about him—that much was obvious—and he was the one to blame.

He wanted to
give her everything, and instead he’d given her
this
.

He breathed
deeply to dispel the fog of fatigue and then went to stand behind her as she
rinsed dishes out in the sink. He wrapped both arms around her waist, pushing
his front into her back.

“Yes?” she
said, stretching the one word out as a question.

He tilted his
head down to kiss the side of her neck.

She set down
the bowl she’d been rinsing, turned off the water, and pulled out of his arms,
turning around so she faced him. Her expression was sober as she said, “We’re
not going to do that again tonight.”

“Do what?”

“Have sex.”

Defensive
anxiety rose up, more quickly than normal since he had so few defenses left,
but he did his best to keep his voice light.  “I thought you were enjoying my
excessive horniness.”

“Of course. To
an extent. But there’s something not right about it.”

Ander froze,
briefly paralyzed at the realization that what he’d always been the best
at—sex—wasn’t something Lori wanted from him.

“I love having
sex with you,” she continued, as if he’d actually spoken a reply. “You know I
do. But, ever since you’ve gotten back, it’s started to feel like it used
to—when I was your client.”

Waves of
confusion and fear slammed into him. He must have damaged their relationship,
when all he wanted to do was hold onto it. “What do you mean?” His voice
sounded strange, stiff, stilted.

“I mean it feels
kind of like it did back then, with you completely focused on pleasing me.”

“What’s wrong
with that? I want to please you.”

She shook her
head, emotion contorting her features. “I mean it feels like your focus is only
on pleasing me physically, like you have some mission to accomplish. It’s not
what we’re doing that seems wrong—it’s
how
we’re doing it. It’s like
you—like
you
—aren’t really there.”

“That’s absurd,”
he objected, sounding angrier than he felt. What he felt was on the verge of cracking.
“Of course I’m there.”

 “I’m telling
you what it feels like, and I’m not making this up. I’ve been thinking about it
all day. I thought at first it might be…be just me, but it’s not. I know I’m
not imagining it. It’s like you’re hiding yourself away somehow—the way you
used to, when we weren’t…when we weren’t together.”

Ander froze
again when her voice cracked and a tear slipped out of her eye.

Her shoulders
shook with suppressed sobs. “I don’t need another orgasm, Ander. I need
you
.
I need you back with me again.”

More tears
streamed down her cheeks, and she swiped them away impatiently.

And Ander
couldn’t stand it. He couldn’t stand that he’d hurt her, when she was the most
important thing in his life.

And he couldn’t
fix it. He had nothing in him that could fix it.

He was breaking
for real.

Breaking right
now.

He opened his
mouth to speak, to say
anything, but no words came out.

He felt that
deep shuddering inside him, impossible to control now, impossible to stomp out,
impossible to deny.

He hated it.
Hated
it. That he wasn’t the man he had thought he’d become after all.

But he wasn’t.
He turned on his heel and headed for the only place he could escape in their
apartment.

He went to take
a shower.

After turning
the water on as hot as he could tolerate, he tossed his clothes on the floor and
stepped under the spray.

For a minute,
he just stood there, the water beating down on him so hot it almost hurt.

The shuddering
rose in his chest again, and he pressed both hands against the tile wall,
pushing against the solidity, as if he could push the feeling away.

It hadn’t yet
worked when he felt a rush of cold air.

Lori climbed
into the shower with him.

“Lori,” he said
hoarsely, not turning around, not moving his hands from the wall since at the
moment it was the only thing holding him upright. “Please just leave me alone
for a minute.”

“I’m not going
to do it.” She adjusted the temperature so the water wasn’t quite so scalding
and then wrapped both arms around him from behind. “It isn’t good for you.
We’ve been through too much, and I’m not going to let you push me away now.”