World Enough and Time (23 page)

Chapter Twenty-Six

My plane touched down at the San Francisco International Airport at just after ten on Friday night.

Though I hadn’t checked any baggage, Connor said he’d meet me by the baggage carousel since it was a fairly central location. I followed the crowd and the signs, every indicator of “
Baggage Claim—This Way
” making my heart beat a little faster. After a few dirty Connorgrams on my cell phone and nearly a week’s worth of nights spent wishing he was in my bed, it was all I could do not to break into a run just to get to him a few seconds sooner.

Up ahead, like a glowing beacon intended solely to drive me out of my mind, was a sign that simply said, “
Baggage Claim
.”

My heart pounded and I walked faster, my palm sweating on the plastic handle of the small suitcase rolling beside me. That man was in for the night of his life when we got to the hotel. There were things he could do to me that I just couldn’t take care of on my own, and everything I’d done to take the edge off had only made it worse.

“It’s just a few days,” I’d told myself the whole time. It wasn’t like I hadn’t gone without sex before. Then again, going without sex wasn’t quite the same as going without sex
with Connor
.

I walked faster.

Even this late at night, the area around the carousels was crowded, but I found him immediately. I saw him in the same instant he looked up from his phone, and his smile made my temperature soar. It was the opposite effect he’d had on me at the horse show. There, he’d created an undercurrent of calm that kept me sane when the rest of the world conspired to do otherwise.

The only way he would be able to calm me down now involved throwing me down on the nearest flat surface.

We shouldered our way through the crowd and when we finally got to each other, he threw his arms around me and kissed me. Thankfully, he held me tight enough to keep me upright when my knees tried to go out from under me.

“God, I missed you,” he said.

“I missed you too.” I was suddenly out of breath and it had nothing to do with my walking sprint across the terminal. Pulling him closer, I kissed him again.

He looked at me and smiled, running his fingers through my hair. Though noise and voices rattled the air all around us, it all disappeared when he leaned in and whispered, “We said in the beginning we had to get in as much time in bed together as possible, right?”

I bit my lip and nodded.

He kissed just below my ear and said, “So why don’t we get out of here and get to our room so we can make up for lost time?”

All the air left my lungs in one sharp exhalation.

Laughing softly, he kissed me again. “Let’s go.”

I reached for the handle on my suitcase, but his hand was already there. With a smile, he nodded toward the exit. As we turned and walked out, he slipped his free hand into mine.
Ahh, now my world is almost back on its axis
.

Short term parking wasn’t a great distance away, and Connor had managed to snag a space fairly close to the door.

“A Chevy Malibu?” I smirked when he gestured at the rental car. “That’s a bit of a switch from a Jeep, isn’t it?”

“Hey, it was all they had available.”

I tried not to laugh. “I don’t know, it sort of suits you. I mean—”

“It’s a long walk to the hotel, smartass,” he growled.

I snorted. “Please, you won’t make me walk.”

“Won’t I?”

“No, you won’t.”

He stopped and folded his arms across his chest, fighting a losing battle against the grin that tried to pull up the corner of his lip. “And just what makes you so sure of that?”

I slid my hand over the front of his jeans and whispered, “Because if I have to walk, you’ll have to wait that much longer to fuck me.”

He gulped, closing his eyes when I gently squeezed him. Without a word, he pulled the keys out of his pocket and popped the trunk.

I winked at him. “That’s what I thought.”

“Guess it’s a good thing I got a hotel that’s close by.” He set my suitcase in the trunk and I handed him my backpack.

“How close is close by?”

He slammed the trunk lid, then turned and put his hands on my face. “Not nearly close enough, but it’ll have to do.” He gave me a quick kiss before he nodded toward the car. “Shall we?”

It was his custom to open my door, but today, we were in too much of a hurry to bother with chivalry. Every second between now and stepping into the hotel that was close but not nearly close enough was too much.

We left the airport and headed up the freeway, making mundane conversation just to pass the time. When he pulled onto San Bruno, my heart pounded. This was a main drag, but not an expressway. I didn’t know exactly where our hotel was, but it had to be close now.

Ignoring my skyrocketing pulse, I said, “So, how has your trip been so far?”

He shrugged. “Busy, mostly. Looking for a place to live, talking to some of the professors and advisors at the university. Crap like that.”

“No time for any touristy stuff?”

“Oh, a little,” he said. “but I figured I’d save the good stuff until you got here though.”

“The good stuff? Such as?”

“Well, you said you wanted to see Alcatraz. Then there’s Fisherman’s Wharf, that sort of thing.” The light changed to yellow and Connor slowed down. As he did, he slid his arm around my shoulders, pulling me a little closer while the car came to a gentle stop. The light turned red. “And
that
gives us about twenty-five seconds.”

“Twenty—”

His mouth was suddenly against mine, kissing me passionately. It was easily the shortest twenty-five seconds of my life, and before I’d even had a chance to really taste his kiss, he broke away, returning to the driver’s seat and accelerating just when the light turned green.

Dizzy and panting, I said, “You knew just how to time that, didn’t you?”

He grinned. “Damn right. I knew I’d never make it from the airport to the hotel without kissing you again.” He glanced at me and winked. “So I made sure I bought myself some time.”

I wet my lips. “You knew that particular light would be red?”

“Nope,” he said. “But I figured the odds were good we’d catch at least a couple of red lights.”

“So you picked that one and hoped for the best?”

He laughed. “Who says I only figured out one intersection? I like to stack the deck in my favor, you know? So I—” He paused, squinting through the windshield. “In fact, that’s Huntington Avenue, and if I’m correct…” He trailed off, taking his foot off the gas to lose just a little bit of speed.

The light stayed green.

“Damn it,” he muttered, accelerating. Just when he crossed the white line, the signal turned yellow. “Well that fucking figures.”

Though I laughed, I was as frustrated as he was.
Come on, stupid lights. Help me out here
.

We passed several more cross streets, none of which had traffic lights, but as we approached El Camino Royale, the light was green.

Under his breath, Connor whispered, “Come on, come on, come on…” My heart thumped in time with his barely audible pleas.

When the signal changed, my pulse soared and my mouth watered. He brought the car to a stop, and I met him halfway across the console. I didn’t know how much time we had, didn’t have a clue how he could keep track, didn’t care if we sat through three or four cycles of the light. I wanted him. God, I wanted him. And the more I tasted him now after a few days of being apart, the more I needed him.

A car horn honked behind us and Connor quickly returned to the driver’s side, waving an apology as he spun the tires and peeled across the intersection.

“Didn’t time that one as well as you thought?” I asked unsteadily.

“Lost count.” He was breathless now too. The Malibu’s engine whined, and though I couldn’t be sure, in the flicker of passing streetlights, Connor’s knuckles looked white on the steering wheel.

Another light came into view. “How long does that one stay red?” I asked.

“Don’t know. But I don’t plan on stopping there long enough anyway.” Before I could ask why, he switched on the turn signal and slowed down. I glanced to the right, and the signs for several hotels glowed in the distance. One of them had to be ours. It had to be.

When he turned the corner and started down Elm Avenue, I leaned forward and reached under the back of my shirt.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Just saving you some time.” My bra went slack and, with a few quick motions of my arms under my shirt, I pulled it out of my sleeve. I dropped it on the seat between us. Connor sucked in a breath.

“Jesus,” he whispered. The turn signal came on again, and I could barely breathe as the Malibu turned into the parking lot beside the Marriott. By the time he’d shifted into park and killed the engine, I was already out of the car, and he wasn’t far behind. Leaving my bra in the front seat and my backpack and suitcase in the trunk, we walked as fast as we could into the hotel lobby.

Connor hit the button for the elevator and we both stared at the glowing number three above the doors. His arm was around my waist, and I was certain his fingers would burn right through my clothes if that elevator didn’t get here soon.

The three went dark. The two lit up.

“Come on…” His fingers twitched against my hip.

Machinery whirred and hummed behind the double doors, and a second later, the familiar bell echoed through the lobby. The elevator opened and three people shuffled out, struggling with suitcases and luggage carts. We stood aside, Connor holding the door to make
damned
sure it didn’t close before we got in. Once the other guests were out of the way, we stepped in and he pressed the button for the third floor. Then he hit the “close doors” button a few times, swearing under his breath while they stayed open for one, two, three seconds too goddamned many.

Finally, they started to close and we both released our breath. The doors had barely come together, sealing us inside this tiny private world, before my back was against the wall and Connor’s lips were against mine. His thick erection dug into my hip, making every nerve ending in my body sizzle with maddening anticipation. My fingers grasped his hair and the side of his neck, unwilling to let him go for even a breath until I absolutely had to.

My need for him teetered precariously between painful and
too
painful. Through the haze, a thought flickered through my mind—
I’m not supposed to need you this much
—but Connor’s hand tightened in my hair and the thought was gone as quickly as it had come.

I didn’t even feel the elevator stop, but the soft
ding
politely nudged us out of our embrace and back into reality. Connor held my hips and stood behind me, no doubt to keep anyone on the other side of the doors from seeing his hard-on. When the elevator opened, though, the hallway was deserted. He took my hand and we half-walked, half-jogged past the numbered rooms.

“Here it is,” he murmured, leaning me up against the door of room three twenty-seven. He kissed me just as passionately and desperately as he had in the elevator, but only one hand touched me. The other, I assumed, searched his pocket for the room key.

The card key clicked into the reader, then beeped. Connor turned the handle on the door, and I had a split second to realize we were both using the door for balance before it went out from behind me. His arm around my waist kept me from falling, but we both stumbled. Inside the room, he leaned against the door and pulled me with him, and for a moment we were safe from gravity.

We kicked shoes off and started toward the bed, but hadn’t gotten our shoes far enough out of the way. I stumbled over one, then his feet tangled up in mine, and we had just enough time to break the kiss and curse before we went down. I tried to catch myself on the edge of the bed. Missed. Landed on my back. The impact knocked a huff of breath out of me, but Connor’s hand in my hair kept me from hitting my head on the floor.

“Christ, Dani, are you okay? Did—”

I seized his shirt and hauled him down to me, kissing him frantically. I’m sure something hurt from tumbling to the floor like that, but I just didn’t care.

Connor returned my kiss just as desperately, sliding his tongue alongside mine and releasing sharp breaths across the side of my face. Shifting onto one arm, he reached between us and unfastened my jeans. I took his cue and went for his belt. The bed was mere inches away, but to hell with it. Moving meant stopping.

His belt buckle jingled free and he shivered when I drew the zipper down. He pushed himself up on his arms and we both looked down while we struggled to get his jeans and boxers over his hips. He kicked them off, then sat up. I lifted my hips and he hooked his fingers over my waistband. He slid my jeans off, then tossed them onto his, but he didn’t come back down to me.

“Come here.” He offered me his hands and pulled me upright. I straddled him and he leaned back against the bed we’d failed to reach.

“Oh God,” I murmured, letting my head fall back while he guided me down onto his cock. Every inch of my body, inside and out, tingled as he slid deeper inside me, his touch flooding my senses with
yes, he’s here, yes, he’s here, yes, he’s here
.

“Fuck, I’ve missed you so much,” he moaned, gripping my hips and thrusting upward. I rose and fell, my breath catching every time his cock brushed my G-spot or his body pressed against my clit.

His hands moved higher, tangling in my hair and drawing me into a breathless kiss. No matter how awkward this position was, no matter how much the carpet chewed the bare skin of my knees, we kept moving faster and faster, meeting each other thrust for desperate, violent thrust.

The first rush of sweet, painful release rippled up my spine and with a gasp, I broke the kiss and threw my head back. I grabbed the edge of the bed and rode him harder, needing him as deep as my pussy could take him.

“Oh my God,” he whispered. “Oh Jesus, Dani, you are so. Fucking.
Tight
.”