by Sally Thorne
“He’s lost something special in you. Why is he like this?”
“I don’t know. If I knew, maybe I could change it. He’s just been that way with me, and most people.”
“But Josh, this is what I don’t get. You’re so overqualified for what you do at B and G.”
“We both are,” he tells me.
“Why do you stay?”
“Prior to the merger, I nearly quit every day. But I already had the family reputation as a quitter.”
“And post merger?”
He looks away, and I see the edge of his mouth beginning to curl in a smile.
“The job had a few good things about it.”
“You enjoyed fighting with me too much.”
“Yeah,” he admits.
“How did you end up working at Bexley, anyway?”
“I applied for twenty jobs in a fit of rage. It was the first offer I got. Richard Bexley’s lowly servant.”
“You didn’t even care? I wanted to work for a publisher so badly I cried when I heard I’d got the job.”
He has the grace to look guilty. “I suppose you’d think it was unfair if I got the promotion now.”
“No. The process is based on merit. But Josh, you’ve got to know. It’s my dream. B and G is my dream.”
He doesn’t say anything. What could he say?
“So you really didn’t bring me along to show Mindy you’d moved on with some hot little dweeb?”
I know his face better than my own, and I can’t see a trace of a lie. When he speaks, there is none.
“I couldn’t face him without you. I am an embarrassment. Dropped out of med school, administrative job, lost the girl to my brother. I’m nothing to him. Mindy and Patrick can have ten children and be married for a hundred years for all I care. Good luck to them.”
I let myself say it. “Okay. I believe you.”
We sit in silence for a moment before he speaks again. “The worst thing is, I keep wondering what I’d be now if I’d stuck with medicine.”
“I’ve got so much inside me I have no idea about. I’m like the mayor of a city I’ve never seen.”
He smiles at my phrasing. “If you knew the kind of little miracles happening every moment you breathe in, you wouldn’t be able to handle it. A valve could close and not open; an artery could split, you could die. At any moment. It’s nothing but miracles inside your tiny city.” He presses a kiss to my temple.
“Holy shit.” I clutch at him.
“You wouldn’t believe the stats on people who go to bed one night and never wake up. Normal, healthy people who aren’t even old.”
“Why would you tell me this? Is this what you think about?”
There’s the longest pause. “I used to. Not so much anymore.”
“I think I preferred it when I thought I was full of white bones and red goo. Why am I now thinking about dying tonight?”
“Now you see why I can’t do small talk. Sorry Dad scared you about the cake. He’s jealous he can’t let himself go enough to enjoy something. I don’t think I’ve eaten cake in a few years. Man, it was good.”
“Filthy little pigs, the pair of us. Want to go downstairs and see if there’s any left?”
He looks at me with guarded hope. “You’re not leaving?”
I remember my plans to get the bus home. “No, I’m not leaving.”
It’s helpful he’s still sitting on the dresser. It means when I step closer and take his face in my hands, I can reach him with only a little tiptoeing. It means I can feel the tingling sparks jumping in the air between our lips, his sigh of relief that tastes sweeter than sugar. His pulse jumps under my fingertips. It’s a pretty convoluted game we’ve played to make it to this moment.
It’s helpful he’s still sitting on the dresser, because I can pull his lips to mine.
Chapter 25
When I kiss him, his exhalation is long, until he’s surely completely empty. I want to fill him back up. I don’t realize it until a few minutes of dreamy, melting minutes have passed that I’ve been talking to him with my kiss. You matter. You’re important to me. This matters.
I know that he understands, because there is a fine tremor in his hands as he slides one fingernail up the side seam of my dress, across my shoulders to my nape. He tells me things, too. You’re who I want. You’re always beautiful. This really matters.
He toys with the zipper of my dress for a tiny, jingling eternity, and then pulls it down. It makes a sound like a needle dragging across a record. He deepens the kiss, and I push closer in between his knees, and wild horses could not drag me away from this man and this room. I will kiss him until I die of exhaustion. When I feel the sharp edge of his teeth on my lips, I know I’m not alone in this.
I let the dress drop and step out of it, bending to pick it up. Self-consciousness prevails and I hide behind it a little, until I look so silly that I have no choice to hold it aside. I had to wear an ivory bodysuit under the dress, like a little swimsuit, to give it a smooth line, and it has little suspenders holding up my stockings. Sleepysaurus, it ain’t.
Josh looks like he’s been stabbed in the gut.
“Holy shit,” he says faintly.
I hand him the dress and put my hand on my hip. His eyes eat every line and curve of me, even as his hands neatly fold my dress in half. My legs are ridiculously short, and I don’t have the benefit of my heels, but the way he looks at me makes my tiny knees weak.
“You’ve gone a bit quiet on me here, Josh.” I slide my finger under the shoulder strap of this ridiculous thing I’m wearing, and pause. I see his throat swallow.
I put my hands on his neck, squeeze briefly in a strangle, then slide them down. He’s so solid, heavy, the heat radiating from within the muscles flexing under my palms. I step in closer, and put my face into his throat, and breathe him in. I close my eyes and beg myself to remember this. Please, remember this when you’re a hundred years old.
His hands slide down my waist to take my butt in both hands, and when I begin to kiss his throat he squeezes me tighter.
“Shirt off. Come on now.” My voice is rough and cajoling. He begins unbuttoning his shirt, looking dazed. When he shrugs out of the shirt I can see his back in the reflection of the dresser mirror. “You’ve still got paintball bruises. I do too.”
My free hand is groping along his chest, and I break off the kiss to watch myself do it. The muscles are all stacked together like LEGOs. I press my fingertips to watch his flesh give. His hands haven’t moved from my ass, but his fingertips have slid down to stroke the little ribbons holding up my stockings. To stop myself from making an embarrassingly loud moan I kiss him again, wriggling closer to him.
“I had it all planned.” He finally finds his voice again, moving me backward smoothly to the bed. He hauls the coverlet away and lays me back against the sheets with easy strength.
“It was going to be a little more romantic than a hotel room.”
Josh, thinking about romance? My heart can’t take it. He captures my mouth in a kiss, and it’s so gentle I could cry.
“See,” he says into my mouth. “I don’t hate you, Lucy.”
His tongue touches mine, tentative, shy. He drops himself down on his elbows, caging me with his biceps, and it triggers the memory of him pressing me against a tree, shielding me, covering me.
I was always covering for you.
I sigh, and he breathes it in. “That’s it . . .”
I stretch and wriggle underneath his weight. “You’re so big. It gets me hot.”
“And you’re so tiny. It makes me wonder about all the ways we’ll fit together. It’s all I’ve been thinking about since the day we met.”
“Oh, sure. The momentous day you looked at me, head to toe, then out the window.”
He’s giving my throat the softest bites imaginable. He slides his fingers into mine above our heads and we’re now holding hands. How did we get back here? To this tender place after the blaze of anger burned us both
up? It’s so sweet, so completely soft and gentle and Josh.
“If we do this tonight, I’m not going to let you get weird on me.” His eyes are solemn as he braces himself up a little. “Are you going to have one of your infamous freak-outs?”
“I don’t know. Very possibly.” I try for a joke but he’s not remotely amused.
“I wish I knew how much I have of you. How much do I get?” He’s kissing me on the throat again, fingers tightening on mine.
“Until the interviews, you get it all,” I say into his skin, and he lets out a shaky breath, like I’ve offered him forever, not a few days.
We begin kissing again, and the friction of my thigh against his groin is spurring him into a slightly heavier rhythm. His mouth is wet, soft, delicious. The moment he stops, even to take a proper breath, I tug him back.
After an eternity, he tangles his hand in the strap on my shoulder. He runs it lasciviously through his fingers pulling it taut, releasing it with the faintest snap, and then does it again.
“The zip’s at the side,” I tell him. Technically I think I begged him.
He ignores me completely and instead slides his finger down to the bow between my breasts. “The smallest bow I’ve ever seen.” He dips his head and bites it.
We’re going so slowly, I wouldn’t be surprised to open my eyes and see daylight. He’s always completely different from what I expect. Soft instead of hard. Slow instead of fast. Shy instead of brash. My previous boyfriends and any of their egg-timer foreplay attempts are distant memories now that I’m experiencing the intense pleasure of lying underneath Josh.
He slides a hand into my hair and the scrape of his nails against my scalp makes my skin break into goose bumps. He licks them. He coils up smoothly to kneel between my feet, seemingly just for a better view. It works for me. I watch his stomach flex, and I make a sound like ohhgah.
“How do you even look like this?”
“I don’t have anything better to do than go to the gym.”
“You do now.”
I sit up too and drag my mouth across the muscles, and I do what I’ve always wanted to. I get my hands on his ass, and it is fabulous.
His hands slide into my hair and I begin making out with his stomach. I can’t help myself. I find a little bit of hair, and look up to see he’s got a light dusting on his chest, in a line down, disappearing beyond the waistband of his suit pants.
“Horny eyes,” he tells me shakily.
“No kidding. I want to snort you. You always smell amazing.” I press my nose into his skin and breathe in as hard as I can, and he begins to laugh. I look up at him and grin.
His fingers are resting on the zip at my side.
“I’m completely covered in bruises,” I say by way of a disclaimer. I suck my stomach in, looking at his abs.
“You’re cute when you get shy. I’ll go slow.” He eases one strap down, lets it rest against my arm. He does the same with the other one. He bites his lip. “I’m going to sit down. I feel too tall.”
There’s a brief reshuffle when he leans against the headboard and I settle between his legs and rest back against him. His hands spread over my shoulders, and my eyes close as he begins to rub, the sweetest, most strangely timed massage. Most men would be unzipping and feeling by now, but he’s not most men.
“You sat like this when you were sick.”
He continues to massage, the friction between us blooming outward. He scoops my hair away and presses his mouth on the side of my neck. I’ll barely be able to remember my own name at this rate.
He slides his hand into the satin and weighs my bare breast in his hand. Slowly, gently, his fingers pinch.
“Oh, yeah,” he groans, and presses his mouth back to my neck.
I hear the sound I make. The kind of harsh intake people usually make from extreme pain. Except I feel like I’m halfway to orgasm.
“Imagine all the things we’re going to do,” he says, almost to himself.
“I don’t want to imagine. I want to know.” My feet are scrambling uselessly against the sheets, like I’m being electrocuted.
“You will. But tonight isn’t enough, I can already feel it. I’ve always told you, I need days. Weeks.”
I barely notice the zipper sliding down. He’s easing me out of the stretchy satin, because the feeling of his big palms smoothing over me is sublime. I’m being coddled and patted, skin warmed, everything admired. When I manage to open my eyes, his breath is steaming hot underneath my ear and the cream fabric is puddled at my waist. He unclips my stockings and leans over my shoulder to look at me.
“Mmm.” He hooks his fingers into the sides of the fabric at my hips, tugs it down my legs and I’m naked except for my stockings.
I see the leg of his suit pants, which makes my nudity feel even more vulnerable. I bring my knees up, trying to hide myself, but there’s no point. He makes kind, soothing sounds against the back of my ear. His huge hand strokes down my hip, my thigh, then clasps my waist. The other hand follows suit.
“Lucy,” is all he can seem to say. “Lucy. How am I going to walk away from tonight? Seriously. How?”
I get goose bumps. I’m wondering the same thing. I let my head drop to one side, and we kiss.
I’m hoarse and breathless. “I’m gonna die tonight. Please take your pants off.”
“I want that embroidered on a pillow,” he says, and I laugh until I’m gasping.
“You’re so funny. I’ve always thought so. I could never laugh, but I wanted to.”
“Ah, so that’s one of your rules.” He slides off the bed, hand on the button at his waistband. “So the aim of the game is to not laugh?”
“The aim is to make the other person laugh. Come on. I’m getting cold.” I’m getting impatient, more like. He pulls the sheets and blankets over me when I shiver and I watch him like a lecherous creep as he manages to ease the zip down on his pants.
“I have my own rules. And the aim of the game is different for me.”
Watching Josh take off a pair of suit pants is on another level. He’s in these stretchy black trunks. They’re badly bent out of shape in front.
“Do tell. Come on.”
He slides those shorts down, and my mouth drops open. Seems that even my fevered imagination was woefully inadequate. I’m about to tell him that he is glorious when he snaps the lamp and we are plunged into darkness.
“No! Josh, that’s absolutely not fair. Light on. I want to look at you.”
I flail my arm at the lamp but when he slides into the blankets and I register the warmth of his body against mine, we make identical sounds of disbelief. Skin to skin. The heat of it.
I have no idea where he is precisely. He’s all over me. I think I feel his breath in my hair, but we roll a little and when he sighs it’s down near my rib cage. It’s disconcerting and erotic and I nearly jolt out of my skin when he slides one hand across my ribs.
Another hand is dispensing with my stockings, smoothing down my legs. He’s touching my ankle and gently pinching at the little curve of my waist. I’ve got hands sliding all over me.
“You’re so soft it’s ridiculous. Everywhere my hand slides, you fit me. I was so right.”
He demonstrates. Throat. Breast. Ribs. Hips. Then he shows me his mouth fits perfectly too. My skin heats with every kiss and press. He licks at the sheen of sweat beginning to mist across me, and I hear a faraway sound that I realize is me. Whimpering, begging noises. He takes no notice and shows no pity. He presses his perfect mouth on whatever section of skin he pleases. Inch by inch, he is charting me like a map. Which is all very well, except that Josh has a body that I need to get my hands on. When he’s partway through traversing the upper curve of my spine, my pleading whispers begin to wear him down.
“Please let me touch you.”
He relents and rolls me over, and I run my hands down his neck to the big muscles at the tops of his arms. I squeeze. I bite. I use both hands to stroke down one bicep, weighing the muscle in
my hand. It’s such a pleasure, to be touching someone else. It’s satin, this skin. My palms tingle from stroking it. My mouth fits everywhere that I can kiss him. My eyes are adjusting, and I can see the glint in his eye as I take my time, testing every new muscle, tendon, and joint that I encounter.
In the dark, I slide my body against his, feeling his sighs, and I tug him down to lie on me properly.
“I’m pretty heavy. I’ll flatten you.”
“I’ve had a good life.”
He laughs, husky and pleased, and obeys me, pressing me down so firmly into the mattress I lose half the air in my lungs.
“Oh, so good. So heavy. I love it.”
He kneels up after another minute because I am gradually dying. I reach down between us and take hold of his intriguing hardness. He lets me fondle and play until his every broken breath convinces me of the fact that he’s falling apart at the seams, and it’s because of me. I can’t think of anything more I could win. But then I feel his mouth against my hip bone, and then he starts kissing my thighs.
I have to laugh, both from the tickling of his stubble and the memory of our uniform argument from a lifetime ago. He kisses my thighs in openmouthed reverence, whispering things I can’t properly hear. They feel like they must be complimentary words; the hot breath punctuated with licks, bites, more kisses. I could never withstand the soft pressure of this mouth, and there’s no doubting his intention. My legs fall open, and I stare into the dark at the ceiling.
The first touch is a swirl. The kind of lick you’d make to the top of a melting ice cream cone. I breathe in so hard I nearly snort, and he kisses my inner thigh, a reward. I can’t form any human words.
The second is a kiss, and I think of his signature first-date kiss; chaste, soft, no tongue. The promise of everything to come. I hug a pillow and decide he’s never going on a first date with anyone, ever again.
The third is a kiss again, but it disintegrates from chaste to dirty so slowly I barely know when it’s changed. He’s got all the time in the world and with each minute ticking by, my body simultaneously relaxes and winds tighter. I find my voice and manage to sound crisp and prissy.
