Going the Distance Read online

  “Take off your clothes.”

  A tiny tremor rippled through her as she met his gaze, then dropped back on her heels to unbutton her jeans. The zipper followed and she stepped out of the wet denim, kicking it into the corner. It was silly but she felt underdressed for a room this nice, her plain clothes not fit for the fine finishes.

  Jarek turned to watch her, his erection already tenting the front of his pants. His folded arms added to the already stern countenance, and though she felt shy, Olivia stripped out of her T-shirt, bra and panties and let him back her into the door, kissing her mouth as his hands explored her body. The room was warm and filling with steam, but his fingers elicited goose bumps everywhere he touched. She moaned against his lips and he squeezed her ass as he reluctantly released her.

  “Get in the shower.” It was a relief to hear the hoarse rasp in his voice; she felt the same way. Strained. Impatient. Achy.

  Olivia crossed the room and pulled open the heavy glass door, stepping inside the enclosure and coming to a halt when she couldn’t get the door to close. She turned to see Jarek holding it open, one shoulder propped against the frame. “Just like this,” he said. “Face me and wash your hair.”

  She couldn’t help but smile. “This is kinky, Jarek. Clean and dirty at the same time.”

  He failed to hide the tick in his jaw that said he was trying not to laugh. “Make lots of bubbles.”

  “I thought this fetish was unique to Japanese businessmen.” She picked up the tiny bottle of complimentary shampoo, put too much in her palm, and stepped out of the heavy spray to lather up her long hair. She tipped her head and bit back a startled gasp when she felt Jarek’s hands on her breasts, pinching her nipples lightly, then harder.

  “Keep going.” His voice was harsh, and after a second one hand tangled in the tuft of hair at the top of her thighs and tugged.

  “Ah ah ah,” she hissed, leaping back out of reach. His hands released her and she ducked under the spray of hot water to rinse her hair, feeling the suds make slippery tracks over her chest and stomach. Jarek made a pained sound, and when she opened her eyes, his shirt was gone and he was kicking off his pants and boxers. He stepped inside and closed the door, then kissed her greedily, water filling their mouths until they broke apart, chests heaving.

  “You’re beautiful, Olivia,” he said suddenly, eyes raking over her. She felt the urge to cover herself but fisted her hands at her sides instead. He’d seen it all before, but he’d never studied her so openly, like he was committing her to memory. He picked up the bottle of conditioner, filled his palm, and reached up to adjust the showerhead so the spray was aimed at the far corner. She watched, blood thrumming, as he used his free hand to collect the towel he’d hung over the door and dropped it at his feet. “Your knee okay?” he asked, glancing at her leg. Her knee was fine. It was everything else that was on fire.

  “Yes,” she answered.

  “Good. Kneel.”

  Olivia took a deep breath and knelt on the thick white towel, her face level with his throbbing erection. They’d done this lots of times, but never quite this way. Not with him giving orders. Never while he wrung out her hair in one hand and massaged in conditioner with the other.

  “Suck,” he whispered, nudging her lips with his cock, breaking her out of her trance. She wrapped one hand around the base and her lips around the head, doing all the things she knew he liked. She combed her nails over his ass, feeling him tense and hearing his sharp intake of breath. She could feel the tension in his thighs, the control he employed to resist thrusting forward too fast, even though he’d been teaching her to take him deeper than she ever would have guessed she could. Chris had never really pushed her; he liked sex, but he’d been happy with the way things were. So had she. Until Jarek.

  She swallowed when he bumped the back of her throat, humming a little at the pleasure of him massaging her scalp with his big, rough hands. She sucked and jerked him harder as she felt him getting ready to come, and didn’t panic when he held her head in place and began to pump his hips, fucking her mouth. He came with a long, painful growl, one hand braced on the shower wall, the other caught in her slippery hair as his thrusts slowed and he pulled away.

  Olivia whimpered as the ache between her thighs intensified, a clenching urge she had never known to be quite this…desperate. Jarek readjusted the water so she could rinse her hair, helping her to her feet and steadying her when her knees threatened to give way. He picked up the wet towel and leaned against the wall, eyes scouring every inch of her body before lingering between her thighs. Olivia spread her legs a little bit, inviting him to do something about the need throbbing there, but instead he lowered a hand and found his cock, stroking it gently, rousing himself again.

  Eventually he shut off the water and toweled her down before leading her out to the bed and lying her across the pristine white covers. The king size bed was firm, the linens soft, and every inch of her skin was on fire. “Jarek, please,” she mumbled, watching him crawl over her closed legs, his fingertips tracing her shoulders, her arms, her wrists.

  “Shh.” He lowered himself, pressing them together from head to toe, and kissed her again, holding her hands over her head, controlling everything. She swore he’d never kissed her this much before, and it was driving her fucking crazy.

  She twisted her face away. “Do something.”

  He chuckled into her neck, biting a little too hard. “I am.”

  “Jarek.”

  “Uh-huh?” He trailed his tongue over her collarbone and fastened his lips around her straining nipple.

  She squeezed her eyes shut tight. “You’re killing me.”

  If he cared, it didn’t show. He continued his painfully slow assault until his tongue had touched her everywhere but where she wanted it most. She’d tried opening her legs several times, but when he let her it was to lick a path up the inside of one thigh and back down the other, never touching the throbbing bundle of nerves at the top of her sex.

  She squirmed and complained and he ignored her, pressing into the soles of her feet with his mean, awful fingers, dragging them up her calves, finding muscles she didn’t know she had. “Please,” she gasped when she was about to combust. “Stop. But don’t stop. Please.”

  Her eyes flew open when he sat beside her, back resting against the padded headboard. He dragged her onto his lap so she straddled his muscled thighs, and she waited, quaking, as he rolled on a condom. She suspected he was suffering as much as she was, but it wasn’t confirmed until he held her hips and guided his cock inside her that he cursed furiously and pressed his head back as though in agony.

  Olivia wiggled her hips and felt the deliciously slippery stretch as she accepted him, loving the sensation of fullness, of being so close to someone that she could feel his heart beating. She wanted to prolong the moment of closeness but couldn’t possibly do so without expiring from unfulfilled arousal, so she ground herself against him and cried out at the unbearable spasms that shook her.

  “Fuck me, Olivia.” His fingers dug painfully into her sides but she didn’t care, rising onto her knees and sinking back down, again and again, thighs burning. She lost her rhythm and stopped moving altogether when he pushed two fingers between her ass cheeks and into her tight opening.

  “Jarek,” she gasped, avoiding his piercing stare.

  He used his other hand to turn her head back, making her look at him as he moved his fingers, slippery with the juices he had gathered from farther below, in deeper. He’d been doing this more and more often, progressing from one finger to two, stretching her until she didn’t think she could take anymore. Apart from one failed attempt with Chris, she had never thought about doing this with anyone, but now…maybe. In the distant future. With someone she trusted as much as she trusted him. Someone that wasn’t Jarek, because he wouldn’t be there.

  “Keep moving,” he ordered softly, thrusting his fingers for emphasis.

  Olivia bit her lip and whimpered as she rocked back
and forth, dragging a rough moan from her implacable boyfriend. He kissed her again and this time she didn’t mind, wrapping her arms around his neck and her tongue around his, feeling him in every part of her, just like he wanted. Like she wanted.

  When neither of them could take it anymore, he gripped her hip and surged into her, again and again, deep and hard. She pressed her forehead to his shoulder and didn’t try to stifle her cries, feeling Jarek’s coarse whispers against her hair. He opened his hand and reached for her clit with his thumb, rasping over the shrieking bundle of nerves until she exploded. She came harder than she’d ever come, nails digging into his back, teeth buried in his shoulder. He jerked viciously as his orgasm followed, then went still.

  “That was something,” she mumbled several long moments later, feeling him laugh beneath her, tasting the salt from his skin on her lips.

  “That was anything,” he corrected.

  She smiled. “I think I need another shower.”

  “Don’t go yet.” He still had his fingers in her ass and he squeezed gently, keeping her in place as he kissed the corner of her swollen mouth. “Don’t go anywhere.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  SHE’D LET IT GO, just as he’d asked. It had been one week since he’d almost—mostly—told Olivia he loved her, and as per his one-word request, she hadn’t brought it up again. And try as he might to think about anything but, he couldn’t stop wondering just what she would have said if he’d finished the thought and allowed her to respond. Would she have balked, looking appalled and uneasy? Or stiffened, standing frozen like a deer in the headlights? Or, worse yet, might she have said it back—I love you, Jarek? He couldn’t bear the thought of her uttering the words, knowing he’d doubt every one of them. How could she love him? How could she love him? How could she love him?

  He resumed taking out his frustration on the punching bag that hung in the corner of the gym trailer. It thudded against the wall with a soothing, familiar knock that shouldn’t have relaxed him, but did. Just because he’d stopped hitting people didn’t mean he didn’t miss it. And just because he hadn’t finished telling Olivia he loved her, didn’t mean he didn’t. Fuck. He hit the bag harder, feeling his shoulders burn.

  “Dude. Would you stop?”

  It took four more punches before the words filtered in. Jarek turned, sweat dripping from his brow and landing in a shiny puddle at his feet.

  Dale lay on the weight bench, hands gripping the bar above him, clearly reluctant to hoist two hundred pounds over his head while the trailer shook.

  Jarek wiped his chin. “Twenty more minutes.”

  “You’ve been at it for thirty!”

  “So? I’ve got energy.”

  “You’ve got rage, idiot. What’d your brother say?”

  Jesus Christ. He’d never known gossips like these men. Olivia had e-mailed him some of the pictures from Beijing and he’d forwarded them on to his brother, who had promptly replied with a picture of their father, wasting away in a hospital bed. He hadn’t seen the guy in years, and he looked nothing like the man he remembered.

  Aidan McLean had been a stocky, imposing figure, now shriveled to a hundred and twenty pounds of skin and bones, with gray, sagging skin and sunken eyes. Tubes ran in and out of his body and machines glowed in the background, their countless lights just blurry halos in the photograph. Jarek hadn’t responded to the e-mail—not that there had been an actual message included, just a subject line altered to read “a matter of days,” so Jonah had started calling. And calling. Just that morning Jarek had fielded a call that had gone the same as all the others: He’s dying. He doesn’t remember much, but he asks about you. Come home. Say good-bye. The only person Jarek had said good-bye to was his brother, when he’d hung up and turned off his phone. So the asshole had taken to calling Brant, asking him to apply pressure to the black sheep of the small family. And Brant had told Dale. Of fucking course.

  “Same as usual,” he grunted, snatching up his towel and mopping his forehead. “I’m done here. Go ahead.” He dropped the towel on the floor and used it to wipe up the pool of sweat, surprised at the amount. Maybe he’d been working harder than he realized. Or maybe he’d gotten soft.

  “You think you’re going to go back?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “What difference would it make?”

  “I don’t know. Seems like you should.”

  “You didn’t go back for your daughter’s birthday.”

  “I sent a gift.”

  “You think I should send a fruit basket?”

  “I think you should be less of an asshole.”

  “You first,” he said, tossing the wet towel at Dale’s head. The corner caught his cheek before it fell to the floor, and the other man grimaced.

  “You’re disgusting.”

  Jarek snatched up his bag and strode across the site and down the street to his apartment building. It was seven o’clock at night and pleasantly warm, but his skin felt prickly and hot. Agitated, much as he’d been since Jonah had started nagging him in earnest. He entered his dim apartment and climbed in the shower, keeping the water cool and holding his head under the spray, trying to drown out the persistent worry clawing at the back of his skull. What if he ended up that man, alone and withered in a hospital bed? There were certainly plenty of people who would love to see that picture, the man who had tortured them dying his own slow death, richly deserved. But what he really couldn’t shake was the look in his father’s eyes as he’d stared at the camera. The thin, unfamiliar face and unhealthy pallor belied the awareness that shone from the same blue eyes he faced in the mirror every day. In the split second the photo had been taken, Aidan McLean knew. He knew regret and shame and loss, the same feelings Jarek stubbornly refused to acknowledge or forgive.

  He allowed himself the quick fantasy of taking the coward’s way out, telling his brother that not only was he not going home to say good-bye, he wasn’t coming home in July, period. If Olivia extended her contract, he could stay here with her until December, and pretend this was his real life. He’d said his good-bye to Aidan a long time ago, but he couldn’t envision saying good-bye to her. Not yet.

  He had keys to her apartment now. Olivia was the only woman to ever give him keys. The only ones he’d ever even considered accepting, he thought as he let himself in. She’d pretty much forced them on him, saying she didn’t want to wait for him in the mornings when she had to go to work, and if he was that uncomfortable with the idea he could toss them back through the metal door once he’d locked it. Then she’d given him that look that said she thought he was a colossal idiot and an immature man child and he’d better not actually do it. So he’d put the keys in his pocket and now he shut the doors behind him and tilted his head to see her sitting in bed, watching something on her laptop.

  “That better not be Parenthood,” he warned, stepping out of his shoes.

  The sound cut off. “It’s definitely not.”

  “Olivia. We’re only supposed to watch on Wednesdays.”

  “Yeah. Well. I didn’t know you were coming over.” They’d gone for their normal Monday run earlier, then he’d bailed on their dinner plans to go to the site and smack around the punching bag. It was a much less formidable opponent than his girlfriend.

  Jarek got a carton of chocolate milk from the fridge and climbed onto the bed beside her. The last rays of sunlight filtered through the closed curtains on the window, and an ancient ceiling fan spun in the center of the room. It was nice in here. Calm. Safe.

  “How many episodes have you watched?”

  “Just the beginning of this one. I was making sure it was good quality.”

  “Uh-huh.” It was hard to believe, but sometimes the counterfeit DVDs they bought were not perfect.

  She peeked up at him. “So…”

  “Well, start over if you already watched it.”

  “Just five minutes.”

  He reached over and hit the back arrow, then
play. “If you say so.” Jarek put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. He fiddled with her hair elastic so the sloppy bun came loose and her hair spilled down, brushing over his fevered skin. He leaned back to watch the show, unable to believe how ridiculously invested he was in the tangled lives of the Braverman family. Growing up they’d only had one television and Aidan was normally stationed in front of it, angry at the news or the basketball game or whatever happened to be on. They’d stayed out of his way, and as a result never got into the habit of sitting down to stare at the thing. But now here he was, watching TV like a normal person, with a girl next to him who thought he was okay, too.

  The show ended and he yawned, stretching as he got up to throw away the empty milk carton. When he returned to the bedroom Olivia was sitting on the edge of the bed looking nervous. He stopped at the door. “What’s wrong?”

  “I heard from Willa today.”

  “That’s your teacher friend, right? The one in Boston?”

  “Outside of Boston, yeah.”

  “She all right?”

  “She’s pregnant.”

  His heartbeat ground to a halt. They’d been careful, except for that one morning when he’d slipped up and been inside her for seconds—seconds—without a condom. How long ago had that been now? She couldn’t be—

  Olivia rolled her eyes. “I’m not trying to tell you I’m pregnant, Jarek.”

  He tried to swallow, his mouth suddenly painfully dry. “I didn’t think you were.”

  She made a face that said she didn’t believe him. “Anyway,” she said with emphasis.

  “Anyway…” He took a few tentative steps forward. Some distant part of him told him to man up and stop wondering about Willa, the friend whose intimate life details Olivia had shared some time ago, the one who’d lost a baby and was indirectly responsible for sending Olivia to China. He’d never met Willa, but he liked her.

  “She’s going to take maternity leave early, as a precaution, and the school still wants to hire me, if I’m available. Starting with summer school in July.”