A Forever Kind of Love, page 12
His husky voice caused a fissure of need to split her heart wide open. Mya melted against him. “Then let me at least say goodbye to her,” she said.
“Be back here in five minutes,” he told her.
She made it back in three.
Following Corey, she jogged over to his SUV, parked just a few yards away on Maurepas Drive. He opened the passenger door and helped her into the passenger seat, then popped open the glove compartment and retrieved his wallet. There was a condom in there, and they were going to put it to use within the hour.
Mya swallowed the knot of lust that lodged in her throat. “How far from here do you live?” she asked as soon as Corey shut his door.
“Ten minutes.” He rammed the key in the ignition and started the truck. “But I can make it there in seven.”
“Do that,” she said.
Corey backed out of his parking spot and continued up Maurepas and onto the highway. They turned into a subdivision that had been nothing but acres of sugarcane fields the last time Mya had been to this part of town. Despite being a planned community, the houses still had huge yards instead of the postage-stamp properties that usually comprised this type of neighborhood.
Corey turned into the driveway of a sprawling two-story home that was way too big for just one person.
He drove past the house and into a backyard that was surrounded by high fencing. He parked just outside a detached garage.
“Sorry I have to park in the rain,” he said. “The garage is filled with a bunch of Jamal’s crap that he’s storing here while he works on his house.”
“It’s okay,” Mya answered with a husky breath. “I’m already soaking wet.”
Corey squeezed his fingers around the steering wheel and cursed. In a strained voice, he said, “Are you trying to make me finish before we even get started?”
“I’m sorry,” she lied.
“Get out of the truck,” he said between gritted teeth.
Mya hopped out of the SUV and ran around the back. Corey caught her arm and pulled her against him.
He was soaked, the fabric plastered to his chiseled chest. He attacked her mouth with hungry kisses, plowing past her closed lips and plunging his tongue inside. Mya responded with hunger of her own, clasping her hands behind his head and holding him securely to her.
Her brain faintly registered the inground swimming pool and teak wood cabana, along with the towering magnolia trees shading his massive backyard. It was exquisite and, like the house, too large for a single person.
As she felt Corey’s iron-hard erection rise up against her stomach, she put the house and every other thought out of her mind.
“We’re not making it inside,” he said roughly against her neck. He stopped under the leafy branches of a magnolia tree and tore the shirt over his head.
“Corey, what are you doing?”
“Strip,” he ordered her as he unsnapped his shorts and shucked them down his legs.
Mya’s mouth gaped open even as her hands went for the hem of her shirt. “Are we really going to have sex outside in the rain?”
“Damn right,” Corey said. He grabbed her and brought her body flush against his own. “Don’t worry,” he said, unzipping her shorts and pulling them down. “The neighbors are too far away to see into the backyard. I skinny-dip in the pool all the time.”
The mental picture that statement elicited sent a streak of fire racing through her bloodstream. Mya sighed into his kiss, her body fever-hot despite the rain falling in fits and spurts through the leafy branches.
His mouth never leaving hers, Corey lowered her to the ground. He unhooked her bra and pulled the soaked fabric from her shoulders and down her arms, following the path with his mouth. He tunneled his fingers underneath the rim of her panties and guided them over her thighs and down her legs.
Their rain-slicked bodies moved easily against each other. Corey cradled her waist and hoisted her up so that she straddled his lap. She bent over and drew her mouth across his chest, flicking at his flat nipple and softly biting his wet skin. He hissed with pleasure, running his palms down her spine, settling them at the small of her back.
“Grab those shorts,” he told her. “My wallet is in the back pocket.”
Mya scooted up his torso and reached for the shorts he’d kicked off a few feet away. She let out a shocked gasp when Corey lifted his head and covered her core with his mouth. He palmed her backside, holding her in place as his tongue delved solid and deep into her slick flesh.
The moan that escaped her lips was animalistic. Mya arched her back, bringing her center closer to his foraging tongue.
Tension gripped low in her belly, pulsing hot and fevered with every lick and plunge. She encased the sides of his face between her thighs, pumping her body in rhythm to his mouth.
“Oh my God,” she moaned as she leaned back and gripped his thighs. He flicked his tongue against her clitoris, fast and furious, curling around the swollen bud and pulling it into his mouth. Then two of his fingers swept in from behind and slipped into her soaking body.
The climax that had started building within her blood erupted with a ferocity that had her screaming toward the sky.
Corey captured her by the waist before she could collapse and laid her onto the soaked bed of soft grass.
With a satisfied smile on those incredibly talented lips, he grabbed the condom she’d dropped and ripped it open. After covering himself with the latex, he spread her legs apart and entered her with one long, deep, decadent stroke.
Mya’s world exploded. Everything ceased to exist, except for this one man who had stolen her heart so many years ago. As he moved with deliberate slowness, driving his hard flesh deeper into her with every thrust, she closed her eyes and melted into the moment. She didn’t need anything else. Only Corey, loving her body the way no other man ever could.
Mya wrapped her legs around his back and locked him on top of her, her hands gripping his rain-slicked shoulders. She sank her fingers into his flesh as he started to pump faster.
He emitted a clipped, low grunt with each thrust, rocking into her body, setting her entire world on fire.
Mya clung to him, savoring every delicious slide of his hard flesh inside of her.
The sensation that started as a small kernel in her belly sprouted into the most intense, magnificent orgasm her body had ever experienced. Corey continued to plunge into her, quickening his thrusts, wrenching another skin-tingling climax from her just moments after the first.
Mya collapsed onto the grass, her body humming with the kind of satisfaction she had not felt in fifteen years.
“Oh, God,” she sighed. She stared up at Corey, a slow smile pulling at her lips. “That was better than I remembered.”
Corey burrowed his head into the pillow, wanting nothing more than to stay tangled in these sheets with Mya for the rest of the morning. He reached out in search of her warm skin, but came up with nothing but cool silk sheets.
What the…?
He sprang up from the bed, tossing the pillows and sheets onto the floor. He looked around the room, a sense of foreboding washing over him as he searched the bathroom, then ventured downstairs.
Empty. The entire house was empty. Mya had actually left him in bed.
The elegant string of curses that tore forth from him was reminiscent of his ballplaying days, but the ire stirring in his gut right now was ten times worse than anything he’d felt after a bad call by an umpire. How in the hell could she leave him? After everything that had passed between them last night?
Corey went to the laundry room and snatched clothes from the dryer. He violently jammed his arms into a clean T-shirt and pulled on a pair of worn jeans. He shoved his feet into his tennis shoes, then grabbed his keys from where he’d tossed them on the kitchen counter.
As he backed out of the driveway, he eyed the massive magnolia tree in his backyard and his stomach clenched in remembrance of all they had done underneath those branches. If he could, he would have the damn thing bronzed.
He turned out of his driveway and headed for the Dubois house.
Ten minutes later, Corey pulled up to the wooden fence surrounding Eloise Dubois’s yard. His chest tightened at the sight of Mya. She was hanging sheets on the clothesline that stretched across the side yard, just beyond the vegetable garden.
She jumped when he closed his car door, and spun around with a flowered sheet folded over her arm. Guilt was written all over her face as he approached.
“Hi,” she said.
“That’s it?” Corey asked.
“Corey, let’s not do this.”
“After what we did last night, you had better believe we’re doing this. Mya, if you think I’m going to let you stand there and tell me last night meant nothing, you’re crazy.”
“I didn’t say that it meant nothing, but don’t make it out to mean any more than it did either. We had sex. Fine. It’s not as if we haven’t done that before. But now that we’ve gotten it out of our systems, we need to just go back to working on the celebration.”
“I haven’t gotten you out of my system, and I don’t plan to,” he said.
“Corey, please.” She let out a tired sigh and kneaded the bridge of her nose. He captured her arm, forcing her to drop the sheet. “Goodness! What!” she shouted, jerking her arm away.
“Why is it so hard for you to say it, Mya?”
“What, Corey? What do you want me to say?”
“That you still have feelings for me. And not the kind of feelings one night of sex will take care of. It’s more than that. I can feel it. I felt it last night.”
Her eyes closed again. Corey tried not to be offended by the anguish that was evident on her face, but it wasn’t easy. Why in the hell was this so difficult for her to accept? They were good together. They always had been. If not for his one indiscretion all those years ago, who knew where he and Mya would be today?
One thing he did know—he was not letting her slip away so easily this time. He’d made that mistake once, and it had cost him fifteen years of living without the woman he loved. He didn’t want to lose another second.
Corey captured both her wrists and pulled her close, pressing a light kiss on the back of her hand.
“I’ve loved you more than half my life, Mya Dubois. I know you think that’s crazy, since it seems like a lifetime since we’ve seen each other, but it doesn’t change the way I’ve felt about you all these years. No one has ever measured up to you. Not even close.”
Her bottom lip trembled, and she pulled it between her teeth. When she spoke, her voice cracked with emotion. “Corey, what do you want from me?”
“I want you to give this a chance. Give us a chance. I don’t want just one night with you.”
“I’m not sure I can give you more than that,” she answered.
Corey’s shoulders sank. Why was she so hardheaded?
“I need to finish this,” she said, stooping low to pick up another sheet. “And I promised Aunt Mo I would help her sew the skirting for the main stage, so I won’t be able to come with you to New Orleans to listen to that band tonight.”
“Is this how it’s going to be?” he asked.
She didn’t say anything else, just resumed clipping the sheet on the line with the old-fashioned wooden clothespins.
Corey stood there for a moment with his hands on his hips, astounded that one woman could possess such stubbornness. He knew better than to press her. She would only close herself off even more.
He bit back a curse as he turned and headed back to his SUV. He sat behind the wheel for several long moments, just staring at her, knowing it made her uncomfortable.
Good. He wanted her rattled—more than she already was.
He could think of only one reason for her to have sneaked out of his bed the way she had this morning: she was just as blown away by what they’d shared as he was. The bond between him and Mya had always been powerful, but last night had been…otherworldly. It was too potent to deny. But she was trying, and Corey knew her well enough to know she would only try harder.
The clock was ticking. Gauthier’s anniversary celebration was only two weeks away, and he could sense that she was planning to head back to New York as soon as it was over. Corey didn’t know how he would do it, but he was going to get through to Mya before it was too late.
Chapter 10
“One strawberry daiquiri with an extra shot of rum,” Phylicia said as she placed a bowl-shaped wineglass in front of Mya. She poured the remaining slushy mixture into another wineglass, hitting the side of the blender until every drop came tumbling out.
“I think you’ve got it all.” Mya chuckled.
Phil peered into the empty pitcher. “Just making sure. After the week I’ve had, I can use whatever form of relaxation I can get.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“Nothing I’m going to bore you with, especially when I know we’ve got much more interesting things to talk about.”
“You mean the plans for the anniversary celebration?” Mya asked with a sarcastic grunt. She knew exactly what Phil wanted to talk about, but Mya wasn’t up for it. She’d spent much of the day trying to push Corey Anderson and his amazing sexual skills out of her mind.
Phil gave her the evil eye, something she was notoriously good at. “Start talking.”
“You picked me up from his house this morning, Phil. There’s not much else to say.”
“Mya Eloise Dubois, if you don’t start talking right now, I am marching straight to your grandmother’s and telling her what you and Corey used to do in her house when she and your granddad would drive to town.”
She cut her eyes at Phil. “You so do not play fair.”
“I never claimed to. Now spill,” Phil said, scooting onto the barstool in the modern kitchen/living/dining area that Mya would never have imagined her best friend living in. For someone whose entire life revolved around restoring historic homes, Phylicia’s modest cookie-cutter house was a downright contradiction. The first time Mya had walked through the door, her jaw had literally dropped open.
She glanced over at the one person she’d shared almost every secret and dream with and knew she wouldn’t be able to hold anything back. Problem was, she didn’t know where to start.
Actually, knowing Phil, Mya did know where to start.
“The sex was great,” she began. “Seriously, seriously great.”
“I’ll bet.” Phil smiled as she took a sip of her frozen daiquiri. “I won’t make you go into detail because we’re grownups now. Unless, of course, you want to.”
Mya rolled her eyes.
“Okay, okay.” Phil held up her hands. “So, now that we’ve established that the sex was great, why exactly did you call me at the butt crack of dawn to come and pick you up from his house?”
“Because, Phil…” Mya shoved an agitated hand through her springy curls and massaged her scalp. The persistent throb that had been hounding her since she’d crept out of Corey’s bed like some thief in the night continued to pound. “I can’t go there again with Corey,” she continued. “What we had ended a long time ago. I’m a completely different person. So is he.”
“So, how do those two people feel about each other?”
“What?” Mya asked.
“You just said that you’re both two completely different people than you were back in high school. So, as two single adults, how—other than being sexually attracted to each other—do you two feel about each other?”
Mya’s eyelids slid shut. She tried to deny the admission she was about to make, but she knew she couldn’t.
Not after last night.
“I think I’m falling in love with him all over again,” she said. She waited for Phil’s response, but all she heard was the sound of the stool scraping on the ceramic floor. She opened her eyes to find Phil reaching inside a kitchen cabinet. “What are you doing?”
“Getting the shot glasses,” Phil called over her shoulder. “This calls for some serious reinforcements. You want to stick with the rum, or should I pull out the bourbon?”
“The rum is fine,” Mya said.
They brought the half-full daiquiris, along with the bottle of rum and the shot glasses, into the living room and settled on the sofa. Yet both of their shot glasses remained dry as Mya poured her heart out to her best friend.
“I just don’t know what to do, Phil. I mean, really, who does this?”
“Does what?”
“Carry a torch for the same boy for fifteen years.”
“Give yourself a break, Mya. It’s not as if you and Corey had some passing fling in high school. You two loved each other more than half the married couples I know. I was jealous as hell of what you two had back then. And, to be honest, I’m not the least bit surprised that you and Corey have landed right back here. If there are any two people who were meant to be together, it’s you two.”
Mya stared at Phil with confusion on her face. “Who are you and what have you done with my best friend?”
Phil flipped her off. “I may not always show it, but I’m still a romantic at heart,” she said. “Seriously, Mya, there has always been something special between you and Corey.”
Mya cradled her forehead in her hand. “I know.” She sighed. “That’s what scares me the most. It feels as if I’m right back where I started.” She shook her head at the ridiculousness of it. “Here I am, thirty-two years old and still pining for Corey.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“I don’t know,” Mya admitted. “It’s not as if I can drop everything and move back to Gauthier. My life is in New York.” She shoved her hand in her hair. “God, why am I even talking about this? It was one night. It’s so typical of me to make things out to be bigger than they really are. I need to be more like you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Phil asked with an affronted frown.
“You know what I mean. You never got all emotional and stuff over guys.”
“That’s because they avoided me like head lice. Are you forgetting the hours you spent in my bedroom while I moped about some loser who wouldn’t give me the time of day?”
