WALKER DIDN’T ACCOMPANY me back to the penthouse, and I didn’t get a chance to speak with him about the brunette for lack of privacy. I rode with Finley, and although I was tempted to ask him if he knew who she was, I convinced myself it would be better hearing it from Walker. He didn’t owe me anything, but maybe he’d be honest after everything that had already developed between us.
It was two in the morning when I woke in a hot flush to the sound of breaking glass. At first, I regarded it as a remnant of a dream. Of the boy pulling me from my mother’s car and through my window, tearing my skin in the process. I couldn’t make sense of how I was able to put more of a face to the stranger all these years after the accident. But as I sat up, pulling my covers tight to my chest, I heard Walker’s distinct accent cursing from down the hallway.
I abandoned the warmth of my bed and made my way to my bedroom door. Goosebumps coated my skin with the early morning chill, and although it didn’t warm me, I still pulled up the straps of my pyjama top as they’d dropped from my shoulders with my movements.
The white glow from the kitchen drop lights illuminated my path as I tentatively made my way from my room and down the hall. When I reached the edge of the kitchen, I spotted Walker perched against the side of the couch, one hand in his pocket, the other on the top of his shoulder, his jacket hanging haphazardly over it. Dropping my head to the side, I studied him from a distance. He didn’t have to look at me to know I was only feet away.
“Careful,” he said, pitching his chin to the floor. “Glass. At your feet.”
I inclined my head down to the floor where a broken glass lay not so far from my skin, a brown puddle of liquid surrounding the debris.
Sidestepping the glass, I made a safe way over to where he was before placing myself between his legs. He watched me curiously, his drunken eyes holding interest as I looked up at him.
I had no discipline.
“Who was that woman today?”
His body remained stoic, but his lips twitched. “I don’t know how I feel about you getting all territorial on me, baby.”
I frowned. “I don’t know how you feel about me at all.”
He let go of his jacket, and I watched it fall onto the couch as he manoeuvred his arms to wrap around me. His warmth embodied me, and his lips came down to my temple. “Truth or a lie?” he asked, using my phrase against me.
I didn’t need to think about it. “I never want your lies.”
He waited a moment, as if he were gathering the words up before deciding whether to speak them. And then he took a breath before letting them out. “I think I’m in over my head when it comes to you,” he murmured. “Because since you sat beside me on that plane, I haven’t stopped thinking about you.”
My breath hitched at his revelation. This was new, but he was drunk… so how was I meant to know if he really meant it?
“You haven’t?”
“How can I? You’re everywhere.”
My voice was muffled when I leant into his chest and asked, “Why?”
He dropped his head, and I felt him smirk against the sensitive field of skin beneath my ear. His touch remained tender, but his breath against my neck had my blood pumping faster. “Why?” he repeated, somewhat amused. “The way you look.” He pressed a kiss to my neck. “Who you are.” I tilted my head, giving him more access. “Your scent.” He nibbled the skin he just kissed, then groaned into my neck as though I was torturing him. “And your taste, I can’t forget it. Fuck, the way I feel about you is chaotic. You make me feel like I’m going fucking crazy. Do you know what crazy feels like to a reasonable man, Blue?”
I breathed hard, feeling the steady thump of his own heart under my ear as I curled my body around his. “Explain it to me,” I whispered.
He shook his head. “There’s no way easy way to explain crazy. You know we’re doomed to fail, you and me.”
“You and me? I think we’re all doomed, aren’t we? Nothing’s forever.”
“Maybe,” he murmured. And then, in one second to another, he went from soft to hard. He swallowed a growl and in a fluid movement, picked me up. My legs wrapped around his waist, locking behind his back, and his hands held steady beneath my thighs as he walked us forward.
“This doesn’t feel like crazy,” I whispered.
“No?” He frowned. “So what does it feel like?”
“It feels like you were meant to hold me like this.”
“It seems a given for us,” he mumbled, his tone thick.
Something pulled at my heart, but I couldn’t comprehend my next thought before he’d dropped me onto the kitchen counter, and his needy lips were on my own.
My lips parted for him as his tongue sought entry. And when my tongue found his, the kiss we shared was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. He didn’t hold back. Everything he gave, I returned. He pushed and I pulled, until all I could taste was the distilled honey on his tongue. I was desperate for every drop. He swallowed my every moan, and I drank his every kiss.
I was intoxicated.
Completely drunk on everything that was him.
Squeezing the backs of my thighs, he thrust me to the edge of the counter, tearing his mouth away from mine and nipping my bottom lip in the process.
“Do you like kissing me?” I spoke against his lips.
“I shouldn’t like it as much as I do,” he grunted.
It wasn’t a yes, but I wasn’t ignorant. Just because we’d grown closer didn’t mean his opinion over how wrong we were for each other would change overnight. He confirmed that when he looked down between us, when he noticed the wetness visible through my pyjama shorts and ambled back. My eyebrows dipped, frustrated he was pulling away, but then he slid his fingers into the edge of my shorts, pulled them from my hips, and followed them with his touch down the length of my legs.
My breathing grew heavier as he dropped the flimsy material to the floor, leaving me sprawled out in front of him in nothing but my pyjama top and underwear.
“Lean back,” he ordered, his eyes glued to the thin scrap of material between my legs.
I dropped to my elbows, my blonde hair falling over my shoulders as I watched him lower his mouth to my left thigh.
A shiver ran through me when his hot, damp breath climbed my skin. But when his lips met the restraint of my underwear, my body tensed. He must have felt it because he paused, and the next words from his mouth were, “Has anyone ever ate this pretty pussy?” His fingers pulled the laced material to the side as he wet his lips. “Or am I going to be the first?”
My skin warmed as he looked up and scrutinised my face. And by the smirk lining his mouth, I knew a blush was visible on my cheeks. Lost for words, I shook my head. He dipped his chin, teasing my clit before he licked a path down my folds and dipped his tongue inside my centre.
“Oh, fuck,” I moaned, sloping my head back and raising my hips, begging for him to push inside me further.
He held me down with his grip on my thighs to keep me from squirming on his face, knowing the only thing between me and an orgasm was a little more friction. He was teasing me–teaching me–showing me it was him who had full control of my body. That he could prolong my pleasure, and we didn’t have to rush.
The pads of his fingers dug into my skin, forcing my thighs open wider, and when he dragged his mouth back to my clit and began teasing me with his skilled tongue, the weight of my elbows gave out and I collapsed against the kitchen counter.
He lifted his head, just barely. “You like my tongue in your pussy, huh?”
“Yes,” I whispered. I was almost afraid to speak in case he decided this wasn’t the right thing to do. In case I gave him any doubt. I needn’t have worried because I felt his cheeks expand against me in a grin.
His hold on me loosened, and then I felt his fingers trace the length of my slit. “What about my fingers?” he murmured before edging inside of me.
Oh God.
I breathed hard. “Nate.”
“Baby, you’re tight. Relax.”
My hips bucked up and into his hand as his two fingers pushed into me and continued their incline.
This time, when he lifted his head, it was high enough for him to stare down at me. Though his eyes were dark with desire, that frown of his I grew to enjoy so much seemed to replace the smirk on his lips.
There was an edge to his voice when he said, “Blue.” And then, with nowhere for his fingers to go, he curled them against my wet pillowed walls. “You didn’t think to tell me you’re a virgin? Shit.” But even through his words, he didn’t cease touching me.
“There wasn’t a right time to bring it up,” I whimpered as he pumped his fingers in and out of me in long, drawn out strokes; not once going past his knuckle. His fingers curled every time he met the resistance, eliciting needy moans from my lips.
“Fuck,” he groaned. “So pretty and tight, I can only imagine what you’d feel like encased around my cock.”
I raised my head to look at him, and the primal way he was looking at me and his explicit words only drove me closer to release.
“Don’t imagine,” I mouthed. “I want you. I want it all with you.”
I meant it.
I’d give it all to him if he wanted it.
I’d be his, completely.
He cursed as my eyes became heavy, but he spoke again before they could close. “No, baby. Eyes on me.” And as I obliged, he followed with a, “That’s it.”
He dropped his head and tongued my clit as he continued to finger fuck me nice and slow. And then, as though he knew when I was about to come undone, he gently seized my clit between his lips and sucked until my orgasm exploded on his tongue.
My thighs trembled around his head as I moved back up onto my elbows, flushed and breathing heavy. With a smirk, he peered up at me from under his eyelashes and pressed a kiss against my pubic bone before springing my underwear back into place.
He straightened, and not caring that I was a damp, quivering mess, he wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me towards him in an embrace. He was hard as hell between my legs, which dangled from the counter on either side of his hips. But he didn’t push for anything more as he kissed me.
This time, our kiss was gentle, but as I tasted myself on his lips, my nose scrunched.
“Fuck, you’re cute.” He smiled drunkenly. “Even when you’re not trying to be.”
“You just made me come and you’re calling me cute?” I rolled my eyes playfully.
The low chuckle that crept up his throat had me sobering, and then he was forcing my legs to wrap around him.
I expected him to deposit me back into my bed, but instead he carried me past my room, down the hall, and all the way to his en-suite, where, like last time we were intimate, he turned on the shower. Only this time, he didn’t join me.
I think my face conveyed something like hurt, because he said, “I need to clean up the glass. I don’t want you accidentally cutting yourself in the morning.”
He waited for me to say something, but all I could manage was a nod of my head. His chest expanded, and he leant into me, pressing a kiss to my forehead. “Shower,” he murmured. “I’ll be five minutes, tops.”
With that, he left, and I undressed.
I wasn’t entirely sure why he’d brought me to shower in his room when he’d made it obvious he didn’t want me there by giving me my own space just last week. But did I care if it meant I was on his mind? Did I care when he considered me ‘cute?’ Did I really care when he was giving me the attention I wanted? If anything, it only made me feel closer to him. It felt like another way he’d cemented me into his life, into his routine, like I belonged.
Even if I didn’t.
Even if he already said I couldn’t.
He may have said he’d be five minutes, but he hadn’t come back by the time I’d finished showering, and for a moment I wondered what I was supposed to do and how I was supposed to act.
Our relationship was still unknown. We weren’t really anything, but at the same time, we were something. I guess the two of us were in reckless territory with no map to navigate.
But when he found me stepping from his en-suite and into his room, wrapped in nothing but a towel, he didn’t say anything. And when I walked into his closet and replaced that same towel with one of his shirts, he remained unreadable.
I climbed onto his bed, kneeling on top of the sheets. “Can I stay in here with you tonight?”
He unfastened his belt as he looked at me and then re-focused on undressing. I could tell by his movements he was still slightly intoxicated. It was probable he’d had another bottle of something alcoholic in the kitchen cupboard. Perhaps with the time it took, had another glass or more while I showered. But he murmured, “If you want,” coherently.
He pulled his belt from his slacks and then disappeared into his closet. When he came out, he was wearing nothing but his boxer shorts. With the voiles still open against the floor to ceiling windows, the city still full of light below us seemed to bring light into our darkness, illuminating him like a work of art.
He loosened his watch as he neared me, and then placed it on the bedside table. And then, once he’d pulled back the quilt, he sat on the edge of the bed.
He looked at me over his shoulder, the angle of his jaw so sharp I was desperate to line it with kisses. Tonight, he felt like mine. And in some strange way, I was already his. And maybe he didn’t know it, and perhaps I wasn’t entirely sure, but what we had felt like something real.
So what I was eighteen? So what I’d never had a boyfriend or been in love? He was thirty-four, and his experience probably outdid mine. But if this was what love could feel like–if this was what it took to get there–I wanted it forever. I wanted to be his, in whatever way he’d have me. And it didn’t have to make sense, as long as it was ours.
“Stop thinking so loud,” he said roughly.
I inhaled sharply, pulling back the remainder of the quilt as I climbed underneath. “Sorry, I… do that sometimes.”
“A lot,” he murmured, doing the same. And unlike all the other times we shared a bed, this time was different. He didn’t face the opposite direction but instead laid on his back, wrapping one arm under my neck to nestle me against his chest. His other hand hiked my thigh up and over his. Even now, he was still hard–I felt him under my leg. But when I reached out to touch him, he gripped my wrist and pulled my hand up to his stomach before linking our fingers together.
I wanted to please him as he pleased me, but I was tired, so I didn’t argue. I had a feeling we would have plenty more intimate moments together. Somehow, tonight felt like the beginning.
“Promise me something,” I murmured.
He stroked a finger across my cheekbone with the arm he had wrapped around me. “What is it?”
“When you crave a drink… think twice.”
He inhaled deeply. “You care about me, huh?”
“Mmhmm, and I think you care about me too.”
Time passed as he continued to stroke my face.
“You didn’t answer my question,” I said sleepily.
“What question?”
“The brunette. Who is she? Is she the reason you drink?”
He squeezed my hand but didn’t reply. I knew he was keeping her from me, but sleep took me before I could question why.
