She disappeared into the bathroom with a handful of clothes, and moments later, emerged as the Mallory I found impossible not to fall for. Her hair was up in a messy ponytail, the tendrils that fell around her neck and face curled a bit from how it had been pinned back before. She wore an oversized Nirvana t-shirt and sleep shorts that were practically invisible beneath it, and I watched her legs with desire building like a storm inside me.
“Ready?” she asked, dropping the dress into her laundry basket before smiling up at me. Her face was makeup-free now, blue eyes tired, but shining, and I thought back to a passing thought I’d had, how I’d wished to see her without her eyes lined, her lips painted, her lashes slicked with mascara.
She was somehow even more beautiful, and I wasn’t even slightly surprised.
I think I’d always known.
I swallowed, heart sinking and reminding me how quickly she’d left the night before. So, rather than tell her how devastatingly gorgeous she was, I just tucked my hands in my pockets and smiled. “Lead the way.”
I followed Mallory downstairs, the shop quiet now that the band and guests had cleared out. The place was a mess, though, and I grabbed the trash can near the bar, tossing empty plates and napkins into it as I passed by the various cocktail tables.
“What are you going to do with all these champagne glasses?” I asked, piling them up on one of the empty tables.
Mallory shook her head, stealing the trashcan from me and putting it back by the bar. “I’ll do a special event where basic bitches can paint a set to take home for when they host brunch,” she answered, then she turned, pointing her finger straight at me. “Now, stop cleaning and follow me.”
She looked so adorable, her little ponytail swinging, feet shuffling in her slippers as she led me over to the photography section of the shop. It was just a small corner, right next to the office she’d converted to a dark room, with shelves of lenses and tripods and photography books. There was something hanging on the wall above the shelf, but it was covered with a gray sheet, and she stood in front of it, waiting.
“I was going to uncover this tonight, but when you see what it is, you’ll understand why I wanted to wait,” she said when I took my place next to her. She stared at the sheet like it was a bed hiding a monster, like if she pulled it down, there was a chance she’d be screaming and running for her life.
I cocked a brow. “It’s a beautiful sheet… thanks for showing me?”
She poked my rib, which earned her a yelp and a laugh. “Don’t be a smart ass.”
“Well, what exactly am I supposed to be looking at?” I rubbed the spot where she’d poked me.
“It’s what’s under the sheet.”
“And are you going to show me?”
She pulled her mouth to the side. “I was… but now I’m nervous.”
I laughed. “Why?”
Mallory turned, watching me with worried eyes before she shook her head, and let out a long, meditative breath. “Just… don’t laugh, okay?”
I frowned, confused, but when she stepped forward, took another deep inhale, and tugged the sheet free from the wall — I understood.
And laughing was the last thing on my mind.
It was, perhaps, the most stunning photograph I’d ever laid eyes on. The colors were so rich, it was hard to believe they were real, that it was a moment captured in real life instead of one painted, one imagined. It was pensive, while somehow still being romantic — the decadent hues of orange and yellow bursting across the large photograph, playing with the deeper, darker shadows present there, too. It almost looked black and white, except for where those sun beams stretched, creating an illusion that made you look twice, three times, forever.
And it was me.
I sat on bar stool, back bent, brows furrowed and eyes focused on the notes I was making in a legal pad. It was the pad I’d jotted down all my thoughts for the shop in, from what furniture I still needed to build to how to lay out each section in order to bring Mallory’s vision to life. I balanced a slice of pizza in the opposite hand, one bite taken from the tip, and I had one foot on the floor, the other on the second rung of the bar stool, knee propped up. My hair was wild and unruly, peeking out from under the edge of my old baseball cap, and the muscles that lined my rib cage were visible through the rips in my old Stratford High t-shirt that I’d cut into a muscle tee when I was eighteen.
It was just me. It was just a man eating pizza and writing down his thoughts.
And she’d somehow turned it to art.
The shadow from the window pane stretched over the left half of my face and body, up the wall behind me, cutting the image into four invisible window panes. Those shadows contrasted the soft glow from the sun setting over Main Street, casting me in its warmth. And the way she’d focused in on my face, somehow bringing the viewer’s eye straight to where I was frowning in concentration, it brought a troubling feeling that sat deep within me, like the man I was looking at was going through more than anyone could know — that even though he was just eating pizza and jotting down a few notes, he was in turmoil.
And yet, he was at peace, too.
I stepped closer, eyes scanning the photo over and over, taking in every corner, catching more beauty with every round I made. I didn’t realize how long it’d been, how long I’d remained silent, until Mallory stepped up, trying to throw the sheet over the photo again.
“It’s stupid,” she said, tucking the edge of the sheet behind the top corner of the frame.
My hand jutted out, catching her wrist, the sheet falling to the floor in a puddle at our feet. I was still staring at the photo, unable to take my eyes away until I pulled Mallory into me. I tilted my chin down then, looking into the eyes of an artist. “It’s incredible.”
“Really?” she whispered.
I shook my head, swallowing, not knowing what the right thing was to say in that moment. Instead, I tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and then bent ever so slowly to kiss her cheek. She sighed at the contact, hands reaching for the edge of my vest, and she pulled me in, not letting me back away.
“It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen,” I said, searching her eyes. “I don’t have the right words to tell you what it means to me. Thank you.”
She closed her eyes, leaning her forehead against mine with a relieved sigh. “I wished I could have revealed it tonight, shown it to everyone, you know? I wish…” She swallowed, hands tightening into fists around the fabric of my vest. “I wish so many things.”
“What do you wish for most?”
“You.”
She answered quickly and effortlessly, sending my heart into a spiraling rhythm. My hands trailed up her arms, sliding to hold her neck gently, her forehead still pressed to mine.
“You can have me, Mallory,” I whispered. “If you want me, I’m yours.”
“I’m scared,” she confessed, her voice trembling with the admission.
I pulled her closer, our noses touching now, lips centimeters apart. “I’m fucking terrified.”
She laughed, the sound barely a whisper, but thick with emotion. Then, she pulled back, her blue eyes flicking between mine. “I’m sorry I ran last night.”
I nodded, brushing her jaw with the pad of my thumbs. “It’s okay.”
“Are we absolutely insane, or just somewhat certifiable?”
“Oh, we’re a special kind of crazy, that’s for sure.”
“Good,” she said, pushing up onto her toes. “I never liked being sane, anyway.”
Mallory pulled my lips to hers, and the way she kissed me was so desperate, so thick with need, I was sure I was her lifeline. The oxygen she needed existed in my lungs, the shelter and protection she craved was provided by my hands, the care and understanding she’d been searching for, she found in my embrace.
And I found all I’d ever wanted in her.
She was the spontaneous to my well planned, the art to my logic, the unexpected welcome to my day-to-day routine I didn�
��t even realize was suffocating me.
In that moment, I took my first breath on a new life with her.
We stayed connected at every point as we floundered up the stairs — hands in hair, lips locked, legs and limbs tangling and claiming until her back hit the comforter of her bed. The only light was the soft glow from the lamp in her living area, and that warm light spread over her like the glow of the sun as I stared down at her. My fingers began working open the buttons on my vest first, then my shirt, all the while with my eyes devouring that diamond of a woman I managed to find in the rough of Stratford, Tennessee.
She leaned up quickly when I moved for the button on my pants, clamping her hand over mine. I stopped, and she peered up at me, scooting until she sat at the edge of the bed. “Let me.”
My breath was heavy in my lungs, chest rising and falling as I watched her hands carefully, slowly, shakily unfasten the button on my jeans. She tugged the zipper down equally as slow, pulling the denim off my hips, down my thighs, letting them pool at my ankles. Her lips parted when she saw my erection under the black briefs I wore, and she ran her hand over the bulge, making my next breath nearly impossible to take.
It was too much already, seeing her below me like that — her blue eyes on my shaft, and then looking up at me, her lips parted, hot breath touching the sensitive skin of my abdomen. She pulled at the band on my briefs, glancing up at me through her lashes before her tongue slicked out and over the tip of me. I hissed, hands fisting at my side, and she gave me a wicked grin before pushing my briefs the rest of the way down, and wrapping her warm hand around my shaft.
It was ridiculous, the jolt of energy that pulsed through me at her touch. She pumped, and I flexed, and she grinned, and my eyes fluttered like I was being touched by Aphrodite herself. When she lowered her mouth again, this time swirling her tongue around the tip once, twice, a little lower, a little lower still, before taking me in completely — I lost it.
My hips flexed forward, sinking deep inside her mouth as my hands found a home in her hair. I gripped and pulled, earning me a satisfied moan from her that vibrated around my cock. I grunted my own approval, and she started to work — bobbing and sucking, alternating sinful, teasing licks with taking me so deep she gagged.
Mallory released me long enough to flip herself on the bed until she was lying on her back, head hanging off the edge, and then her hands reached around me, grabbing my ass and pulling me back to her. She took me in her mouth again, and this time, the new angle of her throat allowed deeper penetration, and the hottest fucking view I’d ever had in my life.
She was spread out on the bed, t-shirt hiked up so much from her flipping over that the bottom of her breasts peeked out from the hem. They bounced with every gentle thrust of my cock inside her mouth, and I reached forward, tracing the bottom of them before I squeezed. She moaned, making my eyes roll back, and I continued my trail down her toned stomach, dipping one hand beneath the band of her sleep shorts. My fingers skated between her lips, and I groaned, circling her clit and slipping one finger inside her easily.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Mallory,” I said, and she hummed, her lips vibrating over my shaft. She was soaking, and I knew I didn’t have to say it for her to know. She rolled her hips against my hand, rubbing her wet clit against my palm, taking my finger deeper — and my cock deeper in her mouth in the process.
When I looked down and saw the bulge in her throat — that bulge being me — I pulled out on another curse, stopping myself from coming and flipping her over on the bed before she could wipe the corners of her mouth and ask my why.
“My turn,” I whispered at the hollow space under her ear. I licked her lobe, sliding my hands under her shirt and peeling it over her head before I made quick work of her sleep shorts. I bent her over the edge of the bed she’d just had her head hanging off, and then I lowered myself to my knees.
Her pussy was swollen and dripping, her round ass poking out, back arched. I ran my hands over her spine, down the crease where her cheeks met, and then I spread them wide, and buried my face in that sweet deliverance.
“Oh, God!” she cried out, her legs already trembling. She held onto the sheets like they were what was responsible for the torturing pleasure, ripping at them until one corner popped off the mattress, and then the other.
I ran my tongue around her clit, between her lips, diving inside her pussy before I repeated the cycle. She spread her legs wider to give me more access, moaning, writhing, her thighs quivering on either side of my face. And if I thought she was close then, when I ran my tongue all the way up, running it in a circle around her perfect little asshole, she shook so violently I had to use my hands to hold her up.
“Oh fuck, fuck, Logan,” she panted. “Yes.”
“Yes?” I asked, sucking her clit between my teeth once more before I ran the flat of my tongue up and over, hitting that sweet ass again.
She arched. “Please.”
With that plea still hanging on her lips, I lowered my lips back to her clit, keeping all my focus there while I pressed my index finger against her puckered asshole. She rolled her hips, gasping, moaning, and when I slipped that digit inside her, feeling her pulse so tightly around me I thought she might break my finger, she let out the most guttural, animalistic groan I’d ever heard in my life.
She came fucking my finger, fucking my mouth, her hips rolling and thrusting, ass bouncing. Every part of her wanted more, and I gave and gave until I was out of breath and she was limp and gasping for air.
It was the sweetest addiction, making that woman come. And I decided then and there that I wanted that pleasure for the rest of my damn life.
She seemed a little dazed as I withdrew, standing and helping her roll over and slide up the bed until her head was on the pillows. I carefully lay down on top of her, elbows propped on either side of her head, body nestling into the space between her legs.
“Who even are you,” she breathed on a laugh, pressing a hand to her forehead before she let it flop back into the pillows.
“I think I can help you remember my name,” I said, kissing her neck and rolling my hips against her. My hard shaft slipped between her legs, into the wet space, making both of us groan in sync.
Her lips were on mine in the next second, and she kissed me hard and possessive, claiming me, urging me into her with her heels digging into my ass. But I kept just enough space there, sliding against her wet folds without actually entering her, just to drive us both crazy a while longer.
I pulled back, balancing on my elbows again, watching her eyes flutter, her lips part each time I rolled. But when her eyes opened again and found mine, that hunger faded, and vulnerability seeped in, slow and sweet, her eyes flicking between mine as both of our movements slowed to a stop.
“What is it?” I asked.
She shook her head, and instead of answering me, she slid her hands into my hair, pulling me down until our foreheads met. She closed her eyes, and I closed mine, and for a moment, we were just there, breathing, existing. Her chest rose to meet mine on every inhale, and with every exhale of mine, I tried to answer whatever questions she had that she couldn’t even ask. I hoped she felt my sincerity, my assurance that whatever fear she had, I was there to fight it with her.
“Condom,” she murmured.
I nodded, rolling off her long enough to dig in the drawer beside her bed. The moment that latex was covering me, she rolled until I was sitting, back against her headboard, ass on her pillows, and she straddled me, sinking down on me without so much as a second to let me brace for contact.
And I needed to brace. I needed to prepare for that overwhelming sense of ownership I felt when she took me inside her. I wasn’t ready, and I had no choice but to give, to submit, to surrender everything. She was tight and hot around me, her legs pinning each side, arms surrounding my neck, forehead to mine. She kissed me softly, tenderly, sucking and biting at my lower lip with each lift of her hips. Every time she lowered back down, I groaned, loud
er and louder, my hands holding her hips to try to get her to slow down.
“I’m not going to last with you going like that.”
“I don’t want you to last,” she breathed, biting my lip so hard I knew she’d drawn blood. “I want you to come.”
The words were barely out of her mouth before I succumbed to her request. Hot lightning pulsed through me, and everything went blank. The only thing I felt, the only thing I could ever feel again was the point where we met, the emptying of me inside her, the sweet tightness of her throbbing out her second orgasm around my shaft. I pulled her close, wrapped my arms around her, flexed my hips into her harder, once, twice, again and again until every drop was spilled. Our bodies were slick and hot when we finally ebbed, our breathing shallow, lips numb where they met.
Mallory fell limp in my arms, burying her face in my neck. I held her for a moment, one hand at the small of her back, the other running back through her hair — which had come loose from her ponytail at some point. I rubbed her scalp before running my fingers through the roots to the ends, and repeated it again and again as she hummed a sated approval.
“That feels nice,” she whispered.
I rolled us over until we were on our sides, disposing of the condom in the trashcan and shutting off the lamp before I climbed in behind her again. I pulled her into me, spooning her, wishing I could crawl inside her mind and know everything she was thinking in that moment.
For a long while, we were quiet. I watched my fingers running patterns over her skin, content to sit in that secret silence with her for as long as she’d let me. Her breath evened out, her eyes closing, and she snuggled closer to me. Before she could fall asleep, I wrapped my arms fully around her, tucking her into my chest, and whispered into her ear.
“Mallory?”
“Yes?”
“Do you think there’s a universe that exists where you could be mine?”
Her eyelids fluttered open, and she turned in my arms. Even in the dark, those blue eyes of hers shone, and she locked them on mine, one hand crawling up to frame my face, sliding back into my hair, pulling me closer, her lips brushing mine when she gave her answer.
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