Fragile Chrissie. Angry Chrissie—since she flooded my voice mail and I still haven’t called her—or the worst of the worst, convoluted emotionally illogical Chrissie.
It’s probably going to be the latter, since everything about the Neil situation is emotionally illogical to me. Her affection for her ex-husband has never gone away, not even through the years after their divorce. They’ve maintained a strong friendship—somehow after Neil shoved in her face in a brutal way that their marriage had been a farce because he’s gay—and she still is willing to participate in keeping his sexual orientation a secret from his fans.
Not one betraying word has even passed from Chrissie’s lips. But then, that’s Chrissie. She is loyal and does it lovingly.
Five years she’s lived with me and I still can’t get Neil Stanton out of my life and I’m still not sure why Chrissie cares for him. It’s probably because they have a child together, but shit, I can’t stomach the fucker, not even for Kaley.
Oh fuck. I shouldn’t be thinking crap about a dead man, and I need to pull it together because showing my disdain for Neil is the last thing Chrissie needs at present. She’s going to be a mess over his death. That much I know for sure.
I move through the main living area of the house. No one. Rooms dark. I check the clock. 10:30 p.m. Hopefully she’s just gone to bed early and isn’t out. It would be a fucking rotten end to the miserable hours of travel if she’s not here. I should have called when the plane landed so she’d be awake. Tonight I could really use one of Chrissie’s homecomings. Having her run to the door, all sexy and breathy with her eyes sparkling just because I’m here.
God, I love the way she looks at me. The way she feels, the delicacy of her in my hands, how soft and supple and intoxicatingly giving she is in a way a woman should be and too often isn’t. The way she smells, tastes—the thought of her shoots straight to my cock.
I pour myself a drink, willing him to be calm. Tonight isn’t going to be—or at least shouldn’t be—one of those hard fuck nights with Chrissie. She’s going to be emotional over Neil’s death. She’s going to want quiet and tenderness and excruciatingly slow lovemaking. It’s fucking incredible how completely she gives in to fully feeling everything in her body, my body, and our bodies together. But it’s been two months apart this time, my body is on fire and my erection hasn’t calmed down completely since I boarded the plane.
I probably should have whacked one off before reaching home, but the building urgency is part of the thrill. The holding back, for her, the long spans of torture without her, then the losing myself in her without letting my body go, not completely, until we are both insane for release.
Fucking incredible torture.
Like the night we first went to bed together. My sexual frustration and long-denied body wanted to fuck her into oblivion. Hell, I’d just gone six months trapped in rehab then Jackson Parker’s house without a woman, but I was held back by her nervousness and sweetness and innocence.
Good thing that I was. That night was a fucking shocker in more ways than one. Who would have thought Jack’s daughter would have been a virgin at eighteen? I sure as hell didn’t—I laugh—definitely a first for the both of us. All my romantic nonsense about wanting to make love to her was just what I thought I had to say to get her into bed quickly so I could do what I wanted with her. And there was quite a bit I wanted to do to her, even though she’d been pretty much a pain in the ass since I’d met her.
Why she had been such a frustrating girl, mixed messages and confusing as hell to pursue, I didn’t get until I found myself punching through her untried cunt and then face-to-face with her tears. I never expected that one. What the hell was a virgin doing giving it up to an asshole like me? Not just any virgin, a beautiful rich girl from California who could have any guy she wanted, but for some reason had settled on a bloke like me.
That’s when the softness of her seeped through my pores. Her beauty. Her fragility. Her sadness—oh yes, even her sadness is an intoxicating thing—and the eagerness in her body that she didn’t know what to do with. Her walls dripping and tight around my cock propelled me to something beyond aroused, only to be quickly followed by the flashing realization that I would be her first experience with sex and if I fucked it up, I would fuck her up forever. And Chrissie was already a pretty fucked-up girl before I entered her life. I didn’t need to screw her up in more ways, not with that perfect body of hers already covered with self-mutilating burns. Her version of pleasure; pain.
What happened next changed me forever. An act of love done in love—it’s like a drug you can’t kick—only she didn’t love me then, not that first night. I was the one already in love with her. Hers from the first moment I saw her. Hers, but she didn’t know that then, and I’m not completely sure she knows that now.
Fourteen years have proven to me that I am and always will be Chrissie’s. I still loved her after she left me in New York in ’89. I still loved her after she cheated on me in ’93. I loved her while she was married to Neil. I love her today after years of her not committing to me. Whatever Chrissie does, I love her.
Moronic.
Asinine.
Romantic drivel.
But it is the fucking truth. There is such a thing as a woman grabbing on to your balls and not letting you go, but for it to last she has to take your heart first so you’ll want it. Chrissie, who understood men not at all when we first met, did this brilliantly. She took possession of my heart during a walk on the beach. My balls she took a week later that first night we went to bed together. And she’s held on to them both ever since.
I walk down the hallway. Kaley’s door is open. I glance in. Bed empty. Ah, my luck is improving. A kid-less house for a change. Oh no, I hope she’s not sleeping with Chrissie. That would be a great fucking end to this wretched day. Then I remind myself that the girl just lost her father. What a selfish prick I am at times.
Whatever happens here tonight is not going to be about me, my wants, or even how fucking scared I’ve been since talking to Dr. Blackman. Whatever Chrissie needs has to come first, that’s part of the cost of loving Chrissie, even though I’ve got my own shit going on.
My bedroom door is ajar. I try to marshal my thoughts into obedience. I’ve been thinking too much lately. Uncharacteristically introspective. Not good. Is this what happens when someone shoves the possibility of dying into your face? You become sentimental, reflective and weak?
I stare in at her. Chrissie is lying on her side in the center of the bed, her beautiful face lit by moonlight, her long, blond hair streaming across the pillow. She looks like an angel—an angel with a body built for sin. Everything a man could want.
I step into the room, set my drink on a table and start to undress. I debate whether I should wake her or just climb into bed and make love to her before she can speak. Get one good fuck in before the shit starts—me telling her about my illness and her telling me about Neil.
It’s been two months since we’ve fucked. My balls feel like they are about to explode. I slip into bed and ease into her until my body is flush against her full length, my cock pressed into the supple flesh of a butt cheek. I inhale, feeling the thrill of her shoot across my already blistering nerves. I run my palm down the smooth flesh of her hip.
I move my hips into her and her sweet little butt pushes back into me automatically, but she doesn’t wake. God, she has a beautiful ass, even if she doesn’t ever let me fuck her there. It’s small and round and firm and torture.
Massaging her with my lower body, I kiss her hair. Her scent fills my nostrils, reminding me of why I was in such a hurry to get here.
My hands skim over her torso and her belly toward my favorite part of her body. I begin to lightly tease her with my fingers between her legs. Gentle, slow, over and over again, as my kisses cover her body, enough to get her wet and hot, but not fully awake…on no, not fully, not until I’m in her. My hips thrust forward, pushing my pulsing flesh deep into her before I can stop myself. I freeze, my body shuddering from being held tightly inside Chrissie.